montana...and, fawn lake

Ken Fortenberry wrote:



Yeah, and I'd be shocked to learn that fish were
caught from that "lake". Charlie's pix look like
a lake but the weedbeds extend far out from the
shore, they almost met in the middle the year I
hiked by there, making fishing impossible most of
the fishing season. Even if you could somehow cast
over all the weeds and accidentally hook a fish you'd
never be able to drag it back through all the weeds
to land it.


i don't know where you fished or what you "hiked by", but it sure wasn't
the fawn lake i saw...probably one of those other little weedbed lakes
on the way to fawn lake. When were you there? I posted a series of large
file pics for others to see...i'll reduce the file size tonight and
repost just the lake pics so you will have no doubt it's a lake full of
water and not marshy, swampy, or full of weedbeds. You can argue this
one all you want, but you're wrong about the fawn lake we personally
visited and observed last week (i.e., mid-July 2005, which i assume is
within the "fishing season" period you reference).

Fawn Lake is not huge, but it's not small either. It's deep and wide.
It doesn't dry up according to Craig Matthews and Steve H. at the Blue
Ribbon. It holds big brook trout. We all witnessed the rises. Warren
saw the big fish. The rises were within casting distance. the fish were
eating damselflies in big splashy takes. I saw one smaller fish jump
fully from the water after something. There appeared to be some small
mayfly hatches as well. There weren't any weeds or weedbeds that would
inhibit casting to or landing a fish. There were no above-bottom or
above-surface weeds at all. i'm a poor distance caster, and i got a
parachute adams out to the area of the rises. warren is a good distance
caster and he did a much better job than i of reaching the area of the
rises and splashes in front of him. ask him about the fish he saw. a
float tube is obviously the preferable manner of fishing the lake. The
lake was entirely free of any weeds growing up to or above the surface
from the bottom. In one of Charlie's pictures of Fawn Lake, I'm
walking/standing on a log that was just below the water surface. The
footing was mucky on the shore bottom and i'd sink in above my ankles
walking out to the drop off.

jeff