Alaska Fishing Vacation ...

I love to fish for big rainbow trout. Now I'm not talking about planted fish that weigh two-to-the-pound, but huge, 19-26 inch long holdovers running 3-7-pounds that have spent several years swimming free since their release from a DFG planting truck. These fish feed on shad, crappie and whatever else floats into their river lie or deep-lake strata where they grow big, fat and sassy.

paintsville lake balancing act

Since it filled in 1983, Paintsville Lake has been known for supporting cool-water fish species -- walleye up to 10 pounds, the occasional 20-inch smallmouth bass, and good numbers of 10- to 14-inch rainbow trout.

But in recent years a number of factors, including higher than normal rainfall and discharge rates, and the cool water demands below the dam, led to the loss of cool-water habitat in the lake.

The one that still gets away

I found the big rainbow one evening three weeks ago. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen it before, at least not in the skinny glass clear pool, where I watched as it twisted its shoulders into the sand and gravel stirring up nymphs. She - I assume the big rainbow was a female because males don't often grow that large.I watched her one other evening just before dark and she rose once to sip a small dry fly off the surface. On some summer evenings a few tan caddis dip over the water, and I've caught a few trout on a tiny tan comparaduns tied on a size 20 hook.That night I checked the sky and went back to the Jeep to pull on hip boots and string up a fly rod. It's a little seven-and-a-half foot bamboo made by Hal Bacon. He build rods for the Payne Rod Company in New York and went west to Oregon, when the company moved, then started building rods under his own name.

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