For a fair number of years now, I have been concentrating most of my summer fishing efforts on a select number of small Interior lakes.
Each, in their own way, represent a number of different types of fishing opportunities. Over the years, I have made a concerted effort to figure out (and remember) how to read their waters.
One of my favourites is a shallow little lake with fallen trees lining almost the entire shoreline. Another has two distinctly different weed beds on either side of an island that are inhabited by a multitude of sub-aquatic insects. Rising from the dark-stained waters of another lake are a fair number of deadfalls that make it dangerous to fish when the sun has gone down – when the fish are most actively feeding. The waters of yet another are so clear that a bad cast or too many false casts will most certainly spook the fish. In effect, each lake, at different times of the year, presents different challenges. The key to fishing each of these totally different lakes, is quite simply, being able to read the waters and knowing where and when the fish might be in any given area of the lake, at any given time of the season.
Learning how to read the waters of any lake requires a basic understanding of how to identify different types of structures within the lake, and potential fish-holding areas within these structures. Such an understanding is achieved, in part, by making observations and remembering/recording your observations so that you have an idea where the fish might be on subsequent trips. Ultimately, it is the ability to make a calculated guess as to where the fish might be, and what they are most likely to be feeding on.
Although fish are relatively opportunistic feeders, I have found that they can also be quite selective. Fish are, by their very nature, relatively wary creatures. If you want to catch fish, you have to think like a fish. So look for areas where there is natural protective cover for both insects and fish and you will likely find a number of fish hanging around – fish that feel safe and secure enough to venture out from their protective cover to go after something to eat.
Now I know there are all sorts of very successful anglers out there who are very diligent about gathering all sorts of information about when certain insect hatches come off and the migration patterns of fish feeding within a given body of water. I also know that if you save such information in a fishing journal, it can pay huge dividends.
I am not a scientific angler. Nor do I have a plethora of recorded observations. What I have learned about the lakes I fish most often, I have learned the hard way, through trial and error – heavy on the error.
It’s not that I don’t have respect and admiration for anglers who make notes and record their observations in a notebook – I know they catch a lot more fish than I might ever hope to. It’s just that I’m more the kind of angler who makes simple observations, stores them somewhere in the back of my memory and, well, hopes to recall things when needed.
All I know for sure is that if fish appear to be rising to some sort of small pale greenish-brown coloured insect with mottled wings lying flat along its back, I don’t really care if it’s a caddis fly or a horsefly, as long as I am able to match the natural with one of the fly patterns in my fly box.
When it comes right down to it, I guess I’m happy just to be out on the water casting my line – whether the fish are feeding or not.
