The warm weather this week is melting the ice on the lakes at Falcon’s Ledge Lodge. The ice is receding from the edges of the lakes and should be completely melted by next week. This is a great time of year to come out to Falcon’s Ledge Lodge and fish the lakes. Here are a few of our favorite fishing techniques for early spring fishing.
During the early spring most of the food for trout to eat is on the bottom of the lake. Trout spend most of their time in the early spring feeding along the bottom of the lake. Fishing a full sink line with a weighted streamer is one of the best techniques to get your flies to the bottom of the lake and slowly strip them along the bottom of the lake with your fingers. This will get your flies down and slowly moving them with your fingers will jig them and create a little motion to attract trout to your fly. Be careful not to move your fly too fast, most trout will not be willing to chase your fly during the early spring when the water is still cold. Dropping a red blood midge or wire worm about 2 feet off the back of your streamer will also help pick up fish that are feeding on smaller midges and worms.
Balanced leeches hung off a strike indicator is another great early spring fishing technique that produces fish most days in April. We like balanced leeches in black and rust brown colors, and we typically hang them off a strike indicator about 5 to 10 feet depending on the depth of the water. Casting them in front of fish working along the edge of weed beds and letting them sit until the fish finds and eats it is a great way to catch trout in the early spring.
In the warm afternoons in April there are sometimes midge hatches on the lakes at Falcon’s Ledge. During these afternoon and early evening midge hatches trout will gorge themselves on emerging midges. The best technique to use to imitate these midge hatches is dropping a midge or chironomid off a strike indicator. We like to drop a larger chironomid in about size 14 off the strike indicator about 3 feet and a smaller midge off the larger chironomid another 2 feet. A zebra midge in size 20 is usually a good midge pattern that consistently works well.
We hope to see you soon at Falcon’s Ledge Lodge for some early spring fishing!
