Amber Lake Report

[johnny costanza]

Fished Amber lake today with what seemed like every other flyfisherman in 
the Spokane area.  The lake this weekend was as crowded as I have ever seen 
it, but I was fortunate to have some very good success fishing chironomids 
near the shoreline in anywhere from 4-8 ft of water.  Not that I was paying 
too much attention to what others on the lake were doing, but it seemed that 
most of the guys I saw catching fish were fishing close to shore using 
chironomids under an indicator.  For me, the most productive pattern was a 
bloodworm (sz 8) with a black v-rib chironomid (sz 12) also accounting for 
some fish as well.  When fished in the right locations, the action at times 
was fast and furious.  I changed locations frequently as the fish, if they 
were there, would usually respond fairly quickly.  If I did not have a fish 
within 15 minutes at the most, I'd move to a different spot.  Once you found 
one fish however that was willing to take your fly, it usually meant that 
they were 5-6 more in the same area that would do the same.  What surprised 
me about today was the size of the fish I was catching.  I landed 7-8 in the 
18-20 inch range, with one or two that were close to 21 inches and very 
thick/heavy.   With the exception of one 8 incher, most of the caught were 
14-17 inches.  They were very active in spite of very cold water 
temperatures.  I'd be curious to know if anyone else fished Amber over the 
weekend and what they encountered in terms of the size of the fish that you 
caught.  They seem to be much bigger on average this year.