Sink line chironimids

I'd just like to share a chironimid technique with those of you who frequent stillwater destinations in pursuit of trout. My experience the past several years is that once the water warms sufficiently many and eventually most fish will stay deep. They no longer need to head to the shallows to find food, in this case chironimids, and will feed on those in deep water. Additionally, my personal belief is that the deep water affords them better security, making them more susceptible to being caught. Sure enough, when my partner and I fished Amber Lake yesterday, April 21st, the fish were congregated in 25-30 feet of water. Noticing lots of bugs on the surface, we dropped our anchors and began casting our sink lines, allowing them to settle out straight down, and began those glacially slow retrieves that you hate but learn to love! WHAM, WHAM, WHAM!!! It was game on and we had a blast, catching 30 beautiful rainbows between the two of us and missing/losing many more. Most fish were caught under 20 feet. It initially requires patience but when it's working patience is not required...I'll take 7, 8 or 9 hookups per hour anyday! Give it a try sometime. It can be tough at first, but when you get comfortable with it, you'll never forget it!

OK...here's something else that'll sound weird but it worked, too! Went back to Amber today and nailed several on chironimids on the sink line...big fish, too, not the "dinks" hanging out in the shallow water. After this petered out I went fishless for about 30 minutes so decided to try something altogether different. Went to a size 10 olive stillwater nymph. Fished it vertical and slow, with the same slow retrieve. 5 BIG (18-20") fish on 5 consecutive casts, crushing hits that left no doubt as to whether or not the fish were convinced. Who'd have thunk it!! Had to leave shortly thereafter but will immediately try again on my next visit.

Raff,
There used to be a guy who fished Dry Falls who did the same thing. He's use a type 7 full sink line. Cast it out and would sometimes wait 10 minutes before he'd start to strip in. When he did strip, he would put his rod completely in the water, pointing straight towards the bottom. Only his reel, handle and about a half foot of the rod were above water. He'd twitch the fly in super slow and just killed the fish. I swear one day I saw he catch at least 50 bows doing this. I spoke with him at the launch one day. He said all he ever used for doing his was chironomids or hares ears.
Brian