Fish-Hawk.Net

I caught this on Saturday, May 20 in the Halibrton Forest Preserve. I was fishing from my Daytripper float tube in rain with wind gusting to 50 km/hr. The lake was fairly shallow - max depth of 50 feet - so I trolled a cone-head marabou muddler variaton on sink-tip line along the shore line in about 15 feet of water. It took about 3 minutes to bring to hand and 30 seconds to snap a few photos.

The best part was catching this fish in front of the 3 a**holes in a boat who were downrigging using minnows in an area with a live bait ban. They were a charming bunch who decided to profanely ridicule me wth my flyrod & my tube. They left when I held the fish up for them to see and released it.

Nice looking rainbow. Good to see someone braved the elements. How did the tube handle the wind (and presumably waves)/

Looks more like a nice brookie to me. 16-17"?

It is indeed a brookie...total length was 20 inches measured on the apron of my tube. The Daytripper is remarkably stable and manoueverable in the wind.

I caught 2 x 2 lb rainbows on the Friday before. Also caught my first ever laker on my 4-wt.

20" brookie is a great size by any standards. I like lakers on fly rod too, their rolls are heartbreaking!

Nice fish, and a real classy way to make the point.

This is my 2nd largest speckled trout. I caught a specimen of 21" long x 13" girth in a lake in the Gatineau Hills about 9 years ago. Regrettably, I didn't flyfish is those days.

What impressed me about the lake trout was how strongly it pulled for an 18" fish. My 4-wt was bent in a rather scary arc!

The lake trout in the Haliburton Forest Preserve are a unique strain that routinely feed at the surface. In the evening at 6:30 you began to see rises and fins as they chased minnows to the surface.