An evening on Rattlesnake Lake

I had never attempted to fly fish from the shore on Rattlesnake lake. So about 8:30pm this evening, I decided to catch the last 30 minutes or so of light to see if I could hook into at least one. Since the gate closed at 9pm, I parked outside the gate and walked around the south side of the lake. By this time, everyone was packing up their boats and tubes. I almost had the whole lake to myself, but there were a couple of other waders near the boat launch area. The evening was perfectly calm, which resulted in the entire lake being glass. Rings dotted the lake everywhere. There were quite a few flies out and a few fish were flying 3 feet above the lake to catch them. I was planning to head to the far end of the lake, but the rise rings close to shore were too much for my patience. I dropped in about a 1/4 of the way along the south side to give it a go. Since there were so many risers, the was no other option but to tie on a dry fly. I was able to get some decent casts out to where some fish were rising. Almost immediately I had a hit, but missed him because of too much slack in the line. I saw another one rise near a submerged stump, and I casted immediately over his ring. SIP! I set the hook, felt the tug for a split second, but the fly released almost immediately. Unlucky. I casted around a few more stumps and rise rings and had some tiny guys miss my fly. By this time I could barely see my fly on the water and was about to pack up, but saw a rise ring no more than 20 feet away I immediately casted towards it. I let the fly sit there...Waiting... Waiting. Nothing for about 10 seconds -- the small ripples of my fly hitting the water disappeared and I could barely see the silhouette of my fly on the now glassy surface. SIP! The fly was gone and I had a solid hook set this time. I quickly played released a 12" trout. Ah, nice to get at least one to hand! Nothing spectacular in size today, but tight lines none-the-less. I figure I'll do a lot more shore fishing on many evenings going forward. It is a nice alternative to hauling the pontoon down and getting it all put together, especially when there is little daylight left. A great way to wind down for the day. Ping me if anyone wants to join me in the evenings to come. -Josh