Cash and I headed up to Davis Lake this past weekend. We camped at East Davis campground and launched my drift boat from there. Fishing was best from 8-2pm. We were able to chase rising fish outside the Odell Creek channel most of that 8-2 time period. Fish were rising to adult caddis, emerging caddis, callibaetis nymphs, callibaetis adults, damsel nymphs and damsel adults. There were billions of midges, millions of caddis and thousands of callibeatis and damsels.
Fishing was good, challenging but good. When I could get near enough to reach a “riser” and put the cast and fly very near the rise the fish would respond. This type of sight fishing required a calm lake, constant movement and long casts. I had my super old box of lake flies with me. It’s so old that there were flies in the box that I had with me when I was Cash’s age fishing Davis lake, yep over 30 years old. Fish ate those flies. Carey Specials and basic marabou damsel patterns were best. I did not try a dry fly.
The fish at Davis are in good shape, they fought hard, often jumped and varied from 8 inches to 20 inches for us. There are undoubtably larger fish in the lake. The water is full of algae and insect life is tremendous, Davis Lake trout are doing fine.
