West side lake

Dave Boyle

Dave Boyle

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Went to a west side island lake today and did ok. Spotty on mids, black and red ones,14 and then later 16-18 in brown or olive, red butts helped. Weed is not bad by the ramp yet but growing in a lot places. Was surprised to find a big bed of it at the SW end of the lake.
Caught a few on mids off the east side of it and then just had to throw a dry fly as fish were rising but my raccoon got nada. Back to mids and a few more. Then I had an inkling I should throw a damsel off the weeds so I rerigged my 4wt dry rod and had a gold bead damsel on point an a wee one further up.
I anchored off them and cast in. Fish hit it hard and I got 3 in about 15min and it then just turned off. The 2 fish was a pig and really took off. The 3rd loved the weeds, reminded me of Chopaka and I knew to give it slack, and then wait and see. It worked, this time….

Then slow and so moving around picking up random fish on smaller mids as I see some 18-20 sized ones coming off. A nice day out but wind was squirrelly and a pita to reset as it moved from N to S and back etc.

Pumped 2 earlier on and only daphnia. Ospreys were full on 8-10am and it was a blast watching them. I saw 2 fish clawt by them. Eagles were chill which was odd, usually they’re muggers.

Water temp was 63.5 so getting hot fast. Also saw adult damsel but dark, blue ones soon I’m sure

Dave

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Treefrog said:
Good report, Dave. A couple of more weeks before the temperatures are unhealthy I would imagine.
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As long as the weather doesn’t go insane, I’d think a bit longer. It will be interesting to see what the weeds( elodea) do, they are going off in many shallows that used be weedless. The bed I fished off was at 10’! Less small algae though which is great.

Dave
 
I’m late to read this Dave but thanks for the report. Great fun on the damsels and I’m happy to hear they be returning enough for the trout to key on them.
 
I enjoyed the report - thanks for sharing! If the aquatic plant is Elodea (and it looks like it is), I hope it behaves itself. It can literally take over a lake and make it difficult to impossible to navigate around in water less than 8' deep.
 
It is, about 20 odd yrs ago it started getting out of control so they killed it all off and added a load of grass carp so other than some lily pads the lake was devoid of plant life other than single celled algae that turned the lake pea green June - sept. It has only just started to recover. The nutrient levels still need to be dropped but as this costs $$$, not likely to happen any time soon so it’ll overgrown, theyll kill it and then repeat…😞

A shame as the damsels are coming back, apparently it was once the most prolific lake on the west side, and maybe soon the spring Chironomids, their hatches were great to fish with an emerger.

Dave
 
Dave Boyle said:
It is, about 20 odd yrs ago it started getting out of control so they killed it all off and added a load of grass carp so other than some lily pads the lake was devoid of plant life other than single celled algae that turned the lake pea green June - sept. It has only just started to recover. The nutrient levels still need to be dropped but as this costs $$$, not likely to happen any time soon so it’ll overgrown, theyll kill it and then repeat…😞

A shame as the damsels are coming back, apparently it was once the most prolific lake on the west side, and maybe soon the spring Chironomids, their hatches were great to fish with an emerger.

Dave
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Thanks for that Dave - and apologies for hijacking your thread. Your lake has been on the same path as my lake - Devils Lake on the Oregon Coast. Aquatic weeds (Myriophyllum) then grass carp (in the 1980's) then the grass carp die off and weeds return. This time it was Elodea and the water improvement district had to get ODFW to change their regulations (no easy task) for the reintroduction of sterile grass carp. Grass carp arrived about 3 years ago - Elodea gone and the lake went out of whack with periodic blooms the past two years. There have been lots of bugs this spring and the coastal cutties are spread throughout. I am hoping this is a sign of some recovery... Bob
 
Dave Boyle said:
Ospreys were full on 8-10am and it was a blast watching them. I saw 2 fish clawt by them. Eagles were chill which was odd, usually they’re muggers.
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This all feels very familiar.
 
glad I went as the lake fished well for me. still dialing in my hopper pram. used an electric motor and trolled the lake.
got into some hold overs and plenty of stockers. hold overs went from 15-19 inches, and strong!
one guy was out chiro fishing and he was catching fish on a regular basis.
I need to figure how how to add photos.

dp
 
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