I have fished a number of pay catch and release lakes and ponds in my day — Sugar Creek, Five Dot, Eagle Canyon, and Antelope Ranch to name a few–but no lake or pond has ever had the size and quantity that Pronghorn gave up. We fished the 150 acre lake this last weekend for two half days and a full day Saturday. In retrospect, we caught many fish from 16 inches to 11 lbs–hundreds! They were somewhat selective and they fought unlike any planted fish I had ever caught. One pumped fish yielded a fistful of live midge pupa another had a gut full of gravel. The fish were big beautiful and fully finned and they spanked size 16 midge pupas “like a stepchild”. We caught fish with everything but the kitchen sink but, by far, Wes, Danny, and Wayne figured it out early and fished midge pupas 8ft under indicators and brown woolly buggers on fast sinking shooting heads. What we witnessed was amazing with Wes and Danny, in their rented boat, sometimes hooking 4 fish at a time as well as watching rods set on the deck flying across the boat and into the water with fish on while fighting other fish on different rods. It was a truely acrobatic event that was non stop all Saturday afternoon. My cousin Kenneth and his buddy Les who have probably fished stillwater ponds only once or twice ever were landing lifetime fish with every hookup. I thought perhaps this was not a really good thing since they have now experience the upper tier of stillwater fishing for trout and it is likely that nothing will match it in Califronia. And then there was Victor (of Califonrina Fly Shop) and Judy, the only female on the trip. Victor took the event by landing a 11 pound Kamloop on a midge pupa on the last day of the trip. Judy expertly netted the behemouth mentioning later something about it saving their marriage. Judy not only added much needed female class to the trip, she provided us with boat cookies and great food at the Friday night pot luck. She managed a respectable amount of trout herself as well as netting the BIG fish. I cant wait to go back. With what we have learned on this trip, I think it may pay to start lifting weights about a month before returning to Pronghorn.
Wow! We just found this….what a beautiful job…..thank you so much for your kind words….can’t wait to have your group back opening weekend in October!