I spent over 3 hours with my #4 sink line thinking that I was getting deep enough. But the other guys were hooking trout with their #6 sink. I like my #4 because I can easily bring the fish in by hand without the tangle you get with thinner lines. With only an hour and half left of fishing and after not getting anything but small bass, I switched. In 45 minutes I had three fish. The top picture measured 21" (about two inches wider than my net). I don't like taking the fish out of the water if I can help it. I lost the next one within 20 feet of the tube. The bottom two pictures of my last fish measured at around 24" and very fat. He would not settle for a pic. You can see that he far exceeds the width of my net. All three RBs were caught in 30-32 FOW and with the #6 line I was right at the bottom and often catching weeds. Wade caught his two fish in the same depth. So what this means is that around 28ft of water has the ideal conditions, perhaps oxygen, food, safety, whatever. Phil Rowley says that fish are opportunistic feeders but selective on depth. I didn't get to see the second fish but he made a few runs and was very heavy. He could have been even bigger or at least that is what my imagination tells me. BTW, I had a single fly and it was very small, a size 12 yellow Hammill's Killer on a 10 ft leader. The thick line on my scope told me that the thermocline was at 40 FOW. This is low for this time of year. It goes to show that our waters are warming.
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