Paulina Lake was good this week. One day was a lot of Grasshopper, Beetle and Red Tarantula action, and the other day was more indicator or sinking line stuff with nymphs and balanced leeches.
There are a good number of big Chironomids hatching, mostly tan colored but some reddish “buzzers” too. Using my throat pump on occasional fish shows some large pupa in the samples, but again, just like in the spring, a ton of tiny #20 (or smaller) dark olive pupa. Throat pump samples also showed a number of what I think are Honey Wasps. They are tan with dark stripes and about a #16.
One thing I am going to revisit today, the Airflo 3 foot anchor tip with 2 or 3 nymphs is a really good way to present chironomids (+ leeches and callibaetis nymphs….really anything you might fish under an indicator) and not rely on an indicator. Why? Well, sometimes in the wind the wave action on the bobber puts too much action on the flies. A couple of days ago, we had breeze, but not bad, but we just weren’t getting the bites fishing an indicator. So by switching to the 3 foot anchor tip and utilizing a very slow hand twist retrieve we started getting bites and getting fish. This is a line I know I am going to be using more and more, and I have to say it feels good to be active with a slow retrieve instead of staring at a bobber (which I love, but you know how it goes on a slow bite, that is tough after a while).