Decided to give Martha Lake another try before the weather went completely into the proverbial hand basket. Arrived around Noon and fished for about four hours. Why for so short of a time? SUCCESS! Trout were clearly rising! Foolishly, I started off with streamers, but thought to switch to a chironomid emerger after seeing substantial risings everywhere. Tried casting to the fish, but no takers. Eventually lost the dry on a bad cast. Decided to switch to a bead-head under an indicator. Casting to rises produced two lost fish and two landed. These were nice 10 inch cutthroats. Very nice and good fighters! Chironomids were hatching steady for at least two hours and began petering out around 3:00pm. I decided to put more line between the indicator and the bead-head and earned myself a big surprise. The indicator went down after about five minutes, and I pulled up. The bend in my rod told me I had on something big! Turned out to be an 16.5 inch rainbow at around 2 lbs! Very, very nice! Guilty pleasure said I ought to call it a day, but I gave it another try. After fifteen minutes or so, I got another strike. This one turned up at around 14.5 inches and 1.5 lbs. Weights are approximations, as those Zebco scales seem a little sketchy. One question, though: Do fish shrink after dead and cleaned? Both measured 1.5 inches longer when I first landed them. In other words, 18 and 16 inches, respectively. Was I hallucinating with excitement, or is there actually something going on here? Feel free to email me at dneriksen@hotmail.com if you have any answers and questions. Tight Lines!

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