Fun Fall Fishing!

Editor's note: John also sent some great photos from his game camera so be sure to check out the Gallery to take a look.

I visited Hidden Lake over the last few days and wanted to give you an update on the lake’s health. The lake appears to be doing quite well overall in spite of the fact that we have lost ~33” of water height year on year. The water is very clear and the vegetation is subdued. I saw numerous trout patrolling the lake while on my dock so I of course decided to investigate. On Sunday the weather was clear and sunny but pretty windy. I initially tried rubber leg patterns that had been very successful this summer only to see the fish ignore them. Later, I went to a bead head green wooly bugger pattern (imitates mud-puppies) and things picked up real fast. I hooked 16 fish in about one and a half hours. I was fishing barbless and didn’t land all that I hooked but most of the fish I landed were 17-18” long with one beauty at 20”+. The next day I fished again for about the same amount of time but the weather was cloudy and calm. My go-to wooly bugger pattern that had been so successful proved useless on this day. However, I noticed that the fish were feeding on the surface so I switched to a tiny nymph fly (size 20 hook) and again began catching fish left and right. On this day, I caught 18 fish with a couple of minnows at 16” but most in the 18-19” range. All of the fish looked very healthy and ready for winter. As long as the fish make it through winter okay, we should have great fishing early next season. While on the lake I had the opportunity to inspect the bubble streams coming from our aeration systems. By my count we have 5 different electric aeration heads and each is doing a great job of making bubbles. Our one windmill aerator continue to function at a good level also, at least as long as the wind is blowing. By all means I encourage all of you fisherpersons to get out on the lake before it freezes over for some great late season fishing!