A couple things to consider. What most people use is what the lodge says is catching fish. Powerbait and worms! Both work great because there are a quarter million fish swimming around in there.
Now one thing most people don't realize is that the biggest fish in the lake are caught by fly fisherman, nobody at the lodge sees those fish by a stringer because the fly guys for the most part just catch and release. I know a few guys up there who have caught over 200 trout in a day fly fishing. Also the new lake record I can guarantee came from a fly fisherman. I spend a lot of time at fly shops taking to guys about how they do up there and some of the pictures I have seen are amazing! Diamond Lake has some of the biggest population of bugs and flies per acre than probably anywhere in the state. They plant all of the fish in Diamond Lake as smolts and they grow up in the lake feeding on these flies and bugs. The largest fish in the lake have been feeding this way for years and were not raised on pellets or anything like that.
This is not to say that the person who wins the derby or catches the next lake record will not come on powerbait or worms but there is a whole other side to catching fish at Diamond Lake that most don't hear about. We will be up there this weekend and will be filming a video on three different techniques that can be used to not only catch a bazillion trout but also some very large ones.
This is one of the main reasons we have developed a jig/fly combo to fish under a float up at Diamond Lake. It allows you to fish an incredibly effective technique that for the most part is under used by gear fisherman. My uncle for instance was up there with me fishing powerbait off the bottom. He eventually got tired of me hooking fish after fish and him getting nibbles and missing fish. He was catching his fair share but after I landed 5 fish over 18 inches and he had only caught 12 inchers he switched over. Also, he was fishing two rods off the bottom and I was just fishing one with a float and jig/fly combo! Let me know if you haver any questions and good luck up there. :dance: