Pacific Fly Fishers' Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Blog

Pass Lake Callibaetis. (Say Whaaaaaat?)

This Pass Lake rainbow ate a brown mohair leech I call the "Baby Ruth".  The fish were scattered around the lake but seemed to be in the 20-foot deep areas most of the day.

Once or twice a year a friend or customer tells me they encountered a big hatch of Callibaetis mayflies on Pass Lake. I’ve fished Pass Lake a quite frequently for about 15 years now and I’ve often seen Callibaetis, but I’ve never seen numbers of them big enough to stir much interest from me or the fish. I always told them they were almost certainly seeing the big chironomids bombers and that Pass Lake doesn’t get anything beyond a sporadic Callibaetis hatch.

Yesterday, I proved myself wrong.</p

Read more →