Horsethief and Rowland

Pez Vela · Oct 13, 2023

A buddy and I drove upriver to Horsethief lake (by the Dalles) … to see if there were any SM bass that wanted to play. We found a few, but I was surprised at how much of the lake was weeded over… nearly half of the lake (west side) is un-fishable. Fairly slow fishing, but we also managed a hand full of yellow perch too.
We pulled out early and ran down to Rowland..only to see this .. the lake is a mess, and we didn’t even try. Hard to say when the toxic algae will clear out. So… it’s not “hot spotting” if it’s a “heads up” …right?

A pretty nice small mouth … great fun on 4wt bamboo fly rod!

I’m pretty sure this monster is a largemouth bass… the first I’ve caught at Horsethief!

Rowland lake .. toxic algae.

Wanative · Oct 14, 2023

That algae stinks. We've been dealing with it every year up in the Northwest corner of Washington.
It typically fires up in August or September and clears out sometime mid to late November up here.

Pez Vela · Oct 14, 2023

Wanative said:
That algae stinks. We've been dealing with it every year up in the Northwest corner of Washington.
It typically fires up in August or September and clears out sometime mid to late November up here.

It's the first time I've seen it at Rowland, but then I usually fish it in the spring. The bummer was WDFW just dumped 1100, near 1 pound rainbows in there on the 9th.

Rob Allen · Oct 14, 2023

My best day ever on Rowland was when there was an alge bloom if was less than an inch thick but covered the entire lake and the alge was absolutely opaque. Caught dozens of largemouth that day, nothing huge but big numbers.. looked like someone took a green crayon and covered the lake

Wanative · Oct 14, 2023

Pez Vela said:
It's the first time I've seen it at Rowland, but then I usually fish it in the spring. The bummer was WDFW just dumped 1100, near 1 pound rainbows in there on the 9th.

I had my best day ever after the algae closure went off last year on the lake up here.

iveofione · Oct 14, 2023

I fished the Rowland Lakes for over 20 years and never saw an algae bloom. I fear that earth has too many humans and it is causing the planet to rot.....

But back to Rowland. In the spring there are huge crappie populations (or were, it has been over 20 years since I fished it) in the south lake on the railroad side of the highway. That water is open to the Columbia and downstream migrating Chinook come in there to feed. I first discovered this back in the 80's while crappie fishing with 2# test line on an ultra light spinning rod with tiny jigs. Sixteen to twenty inch juvenile Chinook would attack my jigs and tear up the lake before breaking me off. What a rush after catching 10'' crappie to hook several salmon! They are really hot fish at that age, especially on light tackle.

Rob Allen · Oct 14, 2023

iveofione said:
I fished the Rowland Lakes for over 20 years and never saw an algae bloom. I fear that earth has too many humans and it is causing the planet to rot.....

But back to Rowland. In the spring there are huge crappie populations (or were, it has been over 20 years since I fished it) in the south lake on the railroad side of the highway. That water is open to the Columbia and downstream migrating Chinook come in there to feed. I first discovered this back in the 80's while crappie fishing with 2# test line on an ultra light spinning rod with tiny jigs. Sixteen to twenty inch juvenile Chinook would attack my jigs and tear up the lake before breaking me off. What a rush after catching 10'' crappie to hook several salmon! They are really hot fish at that age, especially on light tackle.

Hmmm. It's my understanding that Chinook smolt when they are 3-4 inch fingerlings. You must have been catching jacks. Very cool. Either that or they residualized in the lake and became resident.