I was on my way to Fish Lake this morning when I got a chance of heart while driving down the Cheney-Spokane Road. Instead I went on out to Amber Lake. It was a good decision.

The water was calm and about 70° at the surface and 62° at 20', which is where my finder was marking large pockets of fish.

Over the last few weeks I have been using a Stayner Ducktail almost exclusively and had been having good success. I began using the Stayner and caught 2 14" Rainbows right away......then nothing. I had worked my way up the South shore to the "upper" end of the lake and was marking a lot of fish at 12' but I wasn't getting any action. After noticing a pretty thick chironomid hatch coming off I decided to go to a size 16 "Chan's Chironomid". That worked great with fish on my first 3 casts! I was using sinking line with a 6' leader and fishing vertically through the layer of fish.

Over the course of the morning and early afternoon I caught and released over 20 fish with 4 or 5 cutthroats in the mix. Six of the fish were over 20" with the largest at 24".

All in all a pretty good day at Amber and much better than my last two visits!

Tight Lines!

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