Lake St. Bernard. Need advice

[Bullit]

Hi all.

I'm new to fly fishing and am going to lake St. Bernard in three weeks.

Il be fishing from the shore mostly, can I get some advice on flies to use and which lines work best from shore.

I have a floating intermediate and sinking line but which one to use from the shore I don't know.

Also line strength would a 4x be fine ?

Any ideas are welcome. Thanks in advance.

[fish]

Hi Bullit,

I haven't personally fished St Bernard, but can offer some advice.

As far as I know it is more of a natural lake, in other words the fish get stocked as fingerlings and are grown on. There is some big fish with double figure fish (10lbs+) around.

Fly patterns: Lake Dragons, Leeches, Natural coloured buggers, damsels, egg patterns, blood worms/buzzers, and some smaller nymph patterns fished static.

Fly Line: A floater and intermediate offer the best control when fishing from the shore, fish slower in winter. Your leader setup can make a huge difference and I would advice to fish level throughout the leader, in other words, straight tippet.

Tippet: Fishing for potentially double figure fish and weedbeds around will call for heavier tippets, 10lbs when stripping streamers and lighter when fishing smaller nymphs. 2X - 4X should do.

This can get technical......

[fish]

Also tie your streamers on with a loop knot, makes a big difference, gives the fly more movement.

[MaXiMuM]

So now that fish has said everything...

Productive areas, dam wall, opposite bank channel, cliffs at the top and the inlet...

Take all your warm clothes.

[JamesW]

Ib the Mornings get up before sun rise and you can try target the large fish that chill in the outlet. The best method we found was to trail a tiny (16/18) Black ZAK behind a Egg, about 40cm behind…. Floating Line.

Fish the main dam Wall with your Sinking with large streamers or a team or streamers. Also, mid day in front of chalets it doesn't hurt to try a fish a Dry-Dropper combo.

In the evening fish your Floating line along the bank in front of the chalets, lots of fish feed there… Otherwise you can try the tiny black ZAK again in the outlet.

[Michael]

Get a floating line, 95% of your bank fishing will be done with it. In the mornings at first light and late afternoons when the sun sets and it's still light, work the areas between the chalets and the dam wall (and the dam wall as well) with a floating line and floating muddler minnow, with a fast-ish jerky retrieve, and watch the fish smash the fly on the surface.
Other times, or if that's not working, still use the floating line but fish dry-and-dropper style. Use a big buoyant fly like a DDD, hopper, humpy, etc...and then about 60 to 80cm below it, suspend a nymph like a bead-head GRHE, mayfly pattern, zak nymph, etc. Also try suspending an egg pattern instead, and also a small mayfly pattern below that about 20cm further. Cast out to next to the rocks, drop-offs, channels and weedbeds.
Lastly try the dam wall, the channels on the right of the chalets, etc with an intermediate and sinking line, and fish a BFG9000 (a Shaun Futter pattern, see it in the step-by-step tutorials). It's deadly at Lake St. Bernhard! If you don't tie your own flies, try bead-head wooly buggers in black, mostly.
Great place that big some BIG fish, and wild too.

[Bullit]

Thanks for all the advice guys. Il post after the trip on how it went. Very excited.