Question:
Hi Brad. Heading to Tangle Lakes during the last week in August/first week in Sept. I'm wondering what flies you'd recommend, figuring we'll be targeting grayling mostly but that's only based on hearsay from another traveler so any insight as to species and flies would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Dave
Answer:
Hi Dave,
Thank you for reaching out. Grayling are by far the most popular game fish in the Tangle Lakes. Suckers, whitefish and sculpin are also found in the lakes, which are a good forage fish for lake trout. If you want some lakers on the fly, this will be a good time to try for them as they will be moving into and around the inlet and outlet streams to spawn. For grayling try some traditional dries like Elk Caddis, Parachute Adams, Redtail Mosquitos and Redtail Black Gnats. You can also try some fun attractor dries like Hippie Stompers, Chernobyl Ants and small Chubby Chernobyls. For streamers try small Wooly Bugger style flies, Balanced Leeches, UV Mini Leeches, etc… For lake trout try Dolly LLamas in size 2 or 4. All white, white/red throat, chinchilla gray/white and olive variant/white are good. Also try patterns like the Fish Skull Stinger Zonker in Olive, Charmer and Electric Black. For lakers, you will probably want to throw a 7 or 8 wt with a 10-15′ fairly fast sinktip.
I hope that this is helpful,
Mike Cole
Web Manager