What a difference 24 hours can make! Yesterday I loved this lake but today I highly dislike it!!! Just kidding. Nearly same weather and water temps today as yesterday, but the fish didn't seem to care. A small hatch was coming off, chironimds, but no damsels like past days. Fished the same chironimid patterns as those that worked yesterday, in the same area, for an hour. NOTHING. Switched to the bloodworm pattern that worked yesterday. NOTHING.
Was reduced to trolling buggers and leeches, which ALWAYS works. NOTHING. Went smaller and used a hares ear which got 2 half-hearted bumps. Throughout all this fish were sporadically rising, to chironimids I initially assumed. But upon a closer look I realized the lake was covered with hundreds of red and black flying ants, or something akin to that. I don't know if this is true but I've heard that these ants are highly acidic and can temporarily put fish down if they eat too many. Maybe, maybe not. But I do know that 3 1/2 hours later I departed as a dejected, skunked and demoralized fly fisherman. It was all fishing today with zero catching!!

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