Seep Lakes scouting report 9/16-17/2022

Starman77

Life of the Party
Forum Supporter
On Friday and Saturday I scouted out 4 of the small seep lakes, mainly to check out the water temperature. Usually by mid-September the seep lakes start to cool down enough to be safe to fish, but with these unusually hot summers we've had in recent years, it is hard to know. I'm happy to report that the water temperatures ranged from 66 to 68 degrees, so on the marginal side, but fishable. I didn't find many fish in the 4 lakes, possibly due to partial summerkills or the still warm water temps, but I did luck into this nice, husky 20 incher:

20220916_173212.jpg

When I first hooked this fish it didn't fight much and I thought I'd hooked a small fish, like a 13 incher. Then it saw me and suddenly realized it was hooked and took off like a rocket, made two spectacular jumps, and several more long runs before I was able to finally net it. One fish like this can make a trip worthwhile! This fish took a BH Dark Brown Rabbit Fur Leech, so you'd expect that I'd find the fish full of leeches, wouldn't you? Instead, it was chuck full of very small, light green glassworms and nothing else. I was worried that it might have that muddy or musty flavor due to the summer algae, but it tasted great with no muddy or musty flavor at all. Maybe if a fish only eats glassworms down deep, the glassworms don't eat the algae since the algae is near the water surface. I forgot my handheld scale, but when I got home and weighed it, the fish was 4.5 pounds cleaned, so it was probably around 5.5 pounds uncleaned, but you know how we fishermen exaggerate. Still, it was a nice fish and just goes to show that occasionally a quality fish can be found in a general regulation lake. I saw no other fishermen at 3 of the lakes, and just two gear guys at the 4th lake, so if you like solitude, the seep lakes are the way to go.

Rex
 
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Hobbyranch

Steelhead
Forum Supporter
Beautiful fis
On Friday and Saturday I scouted out 4 of the small seep lakes, mainly to check out the water temperature. Usually by mid-September the seep lakes start to cool down enough to be safe to fish, but with these unusually hot summers we've had in recent years, it is hard to know. I'm happy to report that the water temperatures ranged from 66 to 68 degrees, so on the marginal side, but fishable. I didn't find many fish in the 4 lakes, possibly due to partial summerkills or the still warm water temps, but I did luck into this nice, husky 20 incher:

View attachment 32985

When I first hooked this fish it didn't fight much and I thought I'd hooked a small fish, like a 13 incher. Then it saw me and suddenly realized it was hooked and took off like a rocket, made two spectacular jumps, and several more long runs before I was able to finally net it. One fish like this can make a trip worthwhile! This fish took a BH Dark Brown Rabbit Fur Leech, so you'd expect that I'd find the fish full of leeches, wouldn't you? Instead, it was chuck full of very small, light green glassworms and nothing else. I was worried that it might have that muddy or musty flavor due to the summer algae, but it tasted great with no muddy or musty flavor at all. Maybe if a fish only eats glassworms down deep, the glassworms don't eat the algae since the algae is near the water surface. I forgot my handheld scale, but when I got home and weighed it, the fish was 4.5 pounds cleaned, so it was probably around 5.5 pounds uncleaned, but you know how we fishermen exaggerate. Still, it was a nice fish and just goes to show that occasionally a quality fish can be found in a general regulation lake. I saw no other fishermen at 3 of the lakes, and just two gear guys at the 4th lake, so if you like solitude, the seep lakes are the way to go.

Rex
Beautiful Fish!
 

dep

Steelhead
thanks for the report. I think its time to get off the salt water (terrible season for me, and I put my time in) and go back to lake fishing.
 
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