The fishing at East Lake has remained pretty decent throughout August! The smoky sky and the eclipse crowds over the past few weeks have left East Lake rather empty. It seems as the terrestrial fishing has pretty much shut off for the year. We are focusing on deep water chironomid fishing at this point. We are fishing about 15-20 feet deep depending on where we are on the lake. Fishing off the hump, in front of the lodge, and Cinder Hill have been effective areas for fishing deep. Using a long leader, 5x fluorocarbon, and a couple of size 16 tungsten chironomids have been very effective. The tungsten bead helps get those flies down quick!
There are still some good callibaetis hatches at East Lake, with the hazy conditions, the fish are more willing to eat dries then they are on blue bird days. If we have some cloud cover and a little chop, the dry fly fishing can be really great! A size 18 hackle stacker has been the hot fly, getting fish on the surface as well as stripping it back like an emerger. Fishing a dropper off your dry can be great as well.