Another exploratory report 2022/10/20

Starman77

Starman77

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Fished another small lake up in north central WA that some of you will probably recognize from this photo if you've fished it, but it was new to me. I fished it on Wed afternoon and Thursday, altogether about 9 hours of fishing. The water temperature was 53 to 56 degrees, cooling rapidly with the cooler nights. Fortunately, I hooked quite a few medium-sized fish, but no big ones:

Fish Size Distribution 2022-10-20.jpg

Over 75% of the fish I landed were Tiger trout, and many of them were getting into their spawning colorations, like this one:

IMGP5792.JPG

I don't think I've ever fished a lake where I caught so many Tiger trout. If you ever wanted to catch a Tiger trout, this is the place to go, at least this year. You'd almost be guaranteed to catch some Tiger trout, although there are admittedly no guarantees with fishing.

No one else fished the lake while I was there, but there were lots of deer hunters roaming about.

A gray Muskrat Nymph size #12 got 90% of my hits, but I don't think the fly pattern was that important. A Muskrat Nymph is a generic, all-purpose nymph pattern that could imitate a lot of things. It seemed that the fish were just hungry and probably would hit a variety of fly patterns. I always say, "Don't change the fly pattern if it is working."

The deepest part of the lake I could find was 20 feet, so I'd expect frequent winter kills at this lake. The milfoil infestation probably doesn't help in that regard. Since this was the first time I've fished this lake, I'm not sure about the water level, but it looked like it was significantly lower than normal for this time of the year. Visibility was also poor due to an algae bloom.

If the Tiger trout can survive this winter, then the fishing could be very good at this lake next year.

Rex
 
Starman77 said:
View attachment 37597

Fished another small lake up in north central WA that some of you will probably recognize from this photo if you've fished it, but it was new to me. I fished it on Wed afternoon and Thursday, altogether about 9 hours of fishing. The water temperature was 53 to 56 degrees, cooling rapidly with the cooler nights. Fortunately, I hooked quite a few medium-sized fish, but no big ones:

View attachment 37598

Over 75% of the fish I landed were Tiger trout, and many of them were getting into their spawning colorations, like this one:

View attachment 37599

I don't think I've ever fished a lake where I caught so many Tiger trout. If you ever wanted to catch a Tiger trout, this is the place to go, at least this year. You'd almost be guaranteed to catch some Tiger trout, although there are admittedly no guarantees with fishing.

No one else fished the lake while I was there, but there were lots of deer hunters roaming about.

A gray Muskrat Nymph size #12 got 90% of my hits, but I don't think the fly pattern was that important. A Muskrat Nymph is a generic, all-purpose nymph pattern that could imitate a lot of things. It seemed that the fish were just hungry and probably would hit a variety of fly patterns. I always say, "Don't change the fly pattern if it is working."

The deepest part of the lake I could find was 20 feet, so I'd expect frequent winter kills at this lake. The milfoil infestation probably doesn't help in that regard. Since this was the first time I've fished this lake, I'm not sure about the water level, but it looked like it was significantly lower than normal for this time of the year. Visibility was also poor due to an algae bloom.

If the Tiger trout can survive this winter, then the fishing could be very good at this lake next year.

Rex
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In my 50+ years of fly fishing I never made a graph of my catches. Nothing wrong with it, but my descriptions are generally "most of the fish were small, a few were 16+, etc." Guess I am just old school
 
Thanks for the report, Rex. You've sure been putting in the miles exploring lakes a long drive from home, nicely done!! I don't suppose mosquitoes were an issue this trip?
 
Buzzy said:
Thanks for the report, Rex. You've sure been putting in the miles exploring lakes a long drive from home, nicely done!! I don't suppose mosquitoes were an issue this trip?
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No mosquitoes, fortunately, but there were wasps, yellow jackets and little flies around.
 
Thanks for posting! It looks like the air quality was good. It hasn’t been for a lot of the recent weeks.
 
I fished it two weeks ago.
You did better than me Rex, but I was thrilled to catch my first Tiger trout while there.

The first fish I hooked though was a nice sized Rainbow, much larger than the Tigers. It took a stripped muddler. It jumped a few times next to my pontoon and it was a well fed fish.
The Tigers weren't interested in the streamer, so I tied on a Hares Ear and started hooking them and landing some. The "takes" were very light and almost imperceptible and I missed quite a few of them.
 
troutpocket said:
Thanks for posting! It looks like the air quality was good. It hasn’t been for a lot of the recent weeks.
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The wildfire smoke was very bad through the Wenatchee area, but up at the lake it wasn't too bad. It probably helped that the lake was at around 3,000 feet elevation.
 
Greg Armstrong said:
I fished it two weeks ago.
You did better than me Rex, but I was thrilled to catch my first Tiger trout while there.

The first fish I hooked though was a nice sized Rainbow, much larger than the Tigers. It took a stripped muddler. It jumped a few times next to my pontoon and it was a well fed fish.
The Tigers weren't interested in the streamer, so I tied on a Hares Ear and started hooking them and landing some. The "takes" were very light and almost imperceptible and I missed quite a few of them.
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I also found that the Tiger trout didn't seem to be interested in the larger leech patterns, but this rainbow took a leech down deep:

IMGP5779.JPG
 
Bakerite said:
I fished that lake too, Rex a couple of weeks ago on a fairly windy day. Fishing was slow for a lake I knew had lots of fish, until I started ripping the flies back a warp speed, then it was at least a bite on almost every cast.
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That's interesting... I retrieved the fly in short 2 to 3" strips at slow speed with no pausing. At what depth were you fishing? Were the sizes of fish you caught consistent with what I showed in my Fish Size Distribution chart?
 
Thanks Rex, I like these reports and trying to figure out where you went. I usually never can though!

That lake looks so small, do you think it could be effectively fished from shore?

-andy
 
Was a warm windy day Rex. Was fish slime line, beadhead seal bugger and retrieving after a 5 count so within the top couple of feet. Fish were similar in size, but I caught more rainbows than tigers. I plan to fish it in the spring.
 
Merle said:
Thanks Rex, I like these reports and trying to figure out where you went. I usually never can though!

That lake looks so small, do you think it could be effectively fished from shore?

-andy
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That lake photo only shows about a third of the lake, but it is admittedly a small lake. However, I recommend fishing the lake with a float tube, pontoon boat or pram. The problem with fishing from shore is that there is a lot of milfoil and pink knotweed clogging the shallows out to where it is about 8 to 9 feet deep. So, even if you can cast out beyond the milfoil, if you happen to hook a fish how are you going to land it without getting tangled up in the weeds?
 
Troutmaster said:
And another lake is going to get hit hard!
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Probably doesn't matter because the lake will probably mostly or totally winterkill due to the low water level. I also didn't hotspot the lake, and unless you've fished the lake before, you'd probably have a hard time identifying the lake from that photo. There are many lakes up in north central WA that look like that.
 
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