Scenic central WA lake, but tough fishing 2025/11/10

[Starman77]

I fished this central WA lake on Monday (this was my 69th outing to this lake), and I was the only one there all day (which is great if you like solitude, as I do). The scenery is among the most spectacular in all of fly fishing, in my opinion. I love how the setting sun lights up the basalt cliffs and shoreline weeds in that warm sepia coloration.



The water was nice and clear with about 12' of visibility. The water temperature was in the 50 degree range. Fishing was tougher than I expected; the fish just didn't seem to be in a biting mood. There were no insect hatches all day and very few fish rising.



Most of the larger fish were caught between sunset and dusk, like this one that looks like a small steelhead with the red gill plate coloration:



A silver BH Simi Seal Leech in black or olive worked best for me on this outing, casting and stripping with a full sinking line. Most of the fish were hooked on the drop-offs in 8 to 12' of water.

This lake closes on 11/30, so if you're going to fish it, you only have 2.5 weeks to do so.

Rex

 

[Adrian M]

I mean, 13 fish isn't that bad! Beautiful fish.

 

[FishyJere]

That fish looks kinda skinny, how were the rest of them?

 

[Starman77]

I mean, 13 fish isn't that bad! Beautiful fish.

But most of them were those smaller fish; I was expecting to catch more of the larger fish, and maybe one or two really big ones (meaning ones in the 21 to 23 inch range).

 

[Starman77]

That fish looks kinda skinny, how were the rest of them?

The 12 inchers were mostly quite chunky. The larger ones were not as chunky as I've usually seen at this lake, but the sample size was small on this outing, so those fish may not be good representatives of the fish. Then again, the fish I caught in the spring were also not as chunky as in other years, like 2023, when the fish were exceptionally chunky. I've heard of very chunky fish being caught this year, so I'm sure the chunky ones are in there, but there is range of individual characteristics. Sometimes, the chunky ones are so fat they look like over-grown guppies. The browns and Tigers in this lake seem to usually be very thin; I believe that when they are young, they have trouble competing with the rainbows, but when they get bigger (like over 17 inches), they start to put on weight, I think because they become more piscivorous (meat eaters instead of insect eaters).