NUNALLY TRIP: OCT. 5, 2008

OK, I’m 55 and I’ve been fly fishing since I was 8 years old, and I’ve just had the best day fishing in my life. I was looking forward to this trip for a number of reasons; first, this time of year every weekend could be the last viable weather of the fall. The fish have been feeding all summer and are as big as they are going to get for the year, and these last few weeks of fall, fish simply feed with abandon as they’re trying to put on fat before the lake shuts down for the winter.

We planned to fish on Saturday but had to reschedule to Sunday to skirt around the first major storm of the fall. We left at first light and wound up following the tail end of the weather across the pass. My brother Mike and I met his friend Craig for breakfast in Ellensburg and eventually got to the parking lot at Lake Nunally around 11:00. The weather was still a little unsettled while we put our gear together and hiked the ½ mile into lake. Mike and I rigged up first and kicked out through the reeds and as we were treading water waiting for Craig to join us, Mike hooked and landed a 14” Brown. As Craig was making his way out to meet us, Mike hooked and landed his second fish, an 18” rainbow that was shaped like football; and it just got better from there.

For the morning we all fished sinking lines with varying dark woolly buggers and consistently caught fish. Large fish! The first hour the weather threatened with a few light spits of rain and a little wind which quickly blew over and left us with calm water and blue sky and no one else on the lake. After 4 or 5 fish a piece, we hauled out on a lava bench on the far shore of the lake and had a nice lunch of Chicken (thanks to Mike) and a beer.

All afternoon we continued to catch fish at a fast and regular pace as we worked our way down the lake. Feeling like this may be one of the few times when bigger is better, I decide to throw the equivalent of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and dug a huge “Black Zonker” out of my fly box that I’ve been carrying for years. Instantly I was into larger fish with much more aggressive hook-ups and thought I’d found the ultimate. As we worked our way to the end of the lake, the water shallowed up. I decide to try my 4 wt. rod with a dry line and a chironomid below a strike indicator. It really felt vain to set aside something that was working so well. As my first cast settled, I watched my strike indicator disappear and was into another 18” 3lb rainbow. For well over an hour, every cast (no matter where I cast) produced the same thing. I remember looking up at one point and as I was playing another 18” fish, I looked over at Mike and he was intently playing an equal or better fish and then over at Craig and he likewise had a fish stripping line off his reel. It was then that I realized that this had been going on for over an hour and no one had been saying anything; no one had been paddling over see what someone else had landed, no one had even been taking pictures. We were all silently and intently hooking, playing, landing and efficiently releasing enormous fish; one after the other.

Reluctantly, forced by the dimming light,, we finally had to hang it up while the fishing was still incredible to kick back up the lake to the take out. As we kicked back, and tried to tally, we had all lost count, at best guess, we all figured we had had between 20 -25 fish apiece. We wound up at the take out very tired and hiked out in complete dark. When we finally got back to the car and were taking our gear down by the headlights of the car, we all kind of looked at each other and asked if anyone had ever had a better day fishing. No one had!