Still water help

[Jessed]

I really haven't fished for trout in still water and was thinking about fishing a lake. Anyone have a idea on how to locate fish? I've been to the lake and there isn't much going on. How should I fish the streamers?

 

[acesedgley]

Scotts Run?
I usually do not target the trout there, but a week or so ago I went out trying for perch and pickerel. No luck with those at all. There were ants on the water and they were being picked off on surface so I put on a a small brown bugger and caught bluegills, roaches(large golden shiners?), and nice sized but washed out stocked trout.

Went back a few times after that armed with picket pins. located trout by rises that were obviously larger than those made by species mentioned above. If I was close enough to get a cast on one of those in a timely fashion, I was able to hook up. Otherwise I fished blind and still managed to catch a couple.
I also slowly trolled my kayak and got a couple.

 

[Dave_W]

Jessed wrote:
I really haven't fished for trout in still water and was thinking about fishing a lake. Anyone have a idea on how to locate fish? I've been to the lake and there isn't much going on. How should I fish the streamers?

There's not a lot of good lake fishing for trout in PA that is worth persuing with fly gear IMO. Although as Acesedgly points out above, sometimes you can find rising fish and things can work out.

I'd suggest forgetting about trout in lakes from about May to Oct as they will probably be in very deep water. You can target these deep fish with fly gear, but it's a specialized game and not my cup of tea. Locating these summer fish usually requires sonar and a boat. I'd prefer to target WW fish in the shallows during summer. Bass and bluegills are more fun than scrawny stocked trout anyway.

You might find some success if you can find a cold trib stream that enters a lake and target that area with conventional streamers.

There are some higher elevation ponds in the Poconos and other areas that have trout and these are a bit more friendly to an FFer. You can sometimes find rising trout in smaller, spring fed ponds, although such ponds are not numerous.

 

[acesedgley]

+5 to paragraph 2, last 2 sentences of above response from Dave W.!!
It's how I spend most of my late spring through summer.