Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Reading a lake starts before the launch: bathymetric maps show where contour lines bunch into drop-offs, points and sunken islands, and a route gets planned from them. On the water, three things decide where trout are - comfort, meaning temperature and oxygen, protection near depth or riffled water, and food, which mostly lives in 20 feet or less.
Phil Rowley is an Alberta-based stillwater specialist, author of four fly fishing books, and co-creator with Brian Chan of a stillwater app and an online stillwater school.
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How do you read a lake you have never fished?
Reading a new lake starts before leaving the driveway. Bathymetric maps show underwater contours, and the spacing does the work: lines bunched together mean a rapid change in depth, lines spread wide mean a gradual one. That is how drop-offs, points and sunken islands get found on paper. Satellite imagery covers access and getting home again, and local shops, clubs and online groups fill in the rest, so the plan is a route rather than a coin flip at the boat launch.
What do you look for when you first get to the lake?
On arrival the tools are eyes and a small aquarium net. Walk the shoreline, turn rocks, pull apart weed stalks, look in spider webs, and catch a few things to see what size they are, what color they are and how they move. An angler does not need an entomology degree, but does need to know when each food source emerges. The observation continues on the water: idle out slowly with polarized glasses on rather than running to a spot at full throttle.
What water temperature do stillwater trout want?
The working window for stillwater trout is roughly 50 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, where metabolism runs at peak efficiency - they eat, digest quickly and eat again. Warmer water holds less oxygen, and a trout worried about breathing is not worried about eating. Competing species such as perch and suckers are far better adapted to both extremes, which is part of why they take over waters that push trout to the edge of that range.
What are comfort, protection and food on a lake?
The three-part test borrowed from river fishing transfers directly to lakes. Comfort is water temperature, weather systems and lunar phase. Protection is proximity to depth so a spooked trout can drop away, plus riffled surface that diffuses light, plus weed beds. Food is the third leg, and it decides everything else - put the boat where the food lives and the trout will come through at some point in the day.
Why fish water 20 feet deep or shallower?
Water 20 feet and shallower is where photosynthesis drives plant growth, which is the habitat for nearly everything trout eat. It is also where an angler has the most presentation options: strike indicators, floating line and long leader, clear intermediate, or a type three creeping a fly along. Past 20 to 30 feet the options narrow to fast sinking lines, and that deep water functions as a timeout room where unhappy trout suspend and largely refuse to eat.
What is stillwater fishing at Jurassic Lake like?
The Argentine lake known to most anglers as Jurassic Lake holds rainbows averaging 10 to 15 pounds and is fished entirely from shore, often in extreme wind - 60 mile-an-hour days are normal, and the wave action actually churns food up for the trout. It is a high-pH, rocky and volcanic lake full of scuds with essentially no chironomids, so the fishing happens in two to five feet of water with balanced leeches, scuds and blobs. One personal-best 22-pound rainbow came about six feet down under an indicator.
Can you catch walleye on a fly?
Walleye come to the fly in 20 to 25 feet of water using the same dangling approach as deep chironomid fishing: find them on a sounder, anchor on top of them, and hang balanced minnows straight down under an indicator. The take is nothing like a pike's - a walleye inhales the fly, so the line simply tightens, and it will spit the fly the moment it works out the mistake. The tactics were reverse-engineered from what conventional anglers do with slip bobbers and vertical jigging.
Key takeaways
- Read contour spacing on a bathymetric map before you launch: tight lines are drop-offs, wide lines are gradual flats.
- Carry a small aquarium net and check rocks, weed stalks and spider webs before rigging a rod.
- Target the 50 to 65 degree Fahrenheit band - outside it trout slow down or stop eating entirely.
- Anchor in water 20 feet or shallower, where the food is and where every presentation option is still available.
- For walleye on the fly, use a sounder to locate fish, anchor over them, and dangle a balanced minnow under an indicator.
- The takes on a dangled or naked-leader presentation are subtle - a line that simply tightens or straightens is a fish.
