Dry Falls Fishing Dried Up?

Only fished DF in the 70s and 80s. I mainly fished in the shallow section that was super rich in fish food. A lot of sight fishing to open spots among the weeds. Sure would be cool if there was a way to turn on the faucet and restore the water level. That lake used to grow a lotta' fish.
 
Fished DF a few times in the late 80s and earlyv90s. Cool spot and had some good days. Spent most of my time at the Cutt lake a few miles south.

While we're discussing the neighborhood, has anyone fished Deep lake? Looks interesting on google earth.
 
dflett68 said:
assuming the wdfw datasets are accurate, the last adult rainbow stocked in dry falls was in 1998. i don't think any of the triploids planted there were fry.

also, stocking levels really have not changed in the last ten years except to discontinue the tigers. if there are any left, they will be bruisers.

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this thread prompted me to pull a fresh extract - new tigers in the pipeline as of may... generational demographic will now resemble china.
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Stimson said:
My first fly fishing trip to df was with a friend back in the 90's. Fished a green wolly bugger in a round tube all day on sci ang type 3 and caught a dozen. I was amazed. Original boat launch. At one point I brought a 1977 porsche 911, drove it slowly and made it into dry falls. It was all I had to drive at the time and i really wanted to fish. So I tried a successfully made in and out of dry falls. Testimony to the car. It didn't miss a beat. Got on I-90 on the way home driving 100mph thinking life couldn't get any better. Those were definitely the days to remember.
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In the late 80’s I drove my ‘77 Chev low rider pick up with my dad and his rather large friend into DF…this truck sat really low….so after a few clunks of rocks on the passenger side, I made the heavy guy get out and walk to the lake! Not sure how pissed he was but besides not F’n my truck up he needed the exercise!
 
Snopro said:
Fished DF a few times in the late 80s and earlyv90s. Cool spot and had some good days. Spent most of my time at the Cutt lake a few miles south.

While we're discussing the neighborhood, has anyone fished Deep lake? Looks interesting on google earth.
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Fished Deep a long time ago and caught some decent fish there. Very similar scenery wise to DF.
SF
 
Deep lake is, well deep. Like over 90'. And it is long, way too long and narrow to paddle or row IMHO. Launch area to about far right initial point fish well at 10 to 30'. Usual suspects and good indicator spots. Many bait chuckers on shore. The left side is a high cliff, like DF, and it goes very deep right away. There are a few shoals as you work down the right side, and some descent fish can be had as they come up from deep to forage on the shoal. Lake gets a lot of fish and is put and take management. Also actively managed for kokanee, a tough proposition from a float tube. Nice launch, but pay to park, $7 I think. Not a bowl, like DF so if the wind comes up it can really focus on one direction. Yes, very scenic, this is the bay by launch. In early May, if DF handed you the black with white stripe, you can sooth your ego at Deep (experience talking).
 

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Deep was loads of fun once the kids were old enough to swim well. Fish early, then spend the afternoon jumping and diving off the cliffs.
 
Wonder if dry falls has the same problem as nunnally/merry lakes ? Used to paddle up just to fish Bobby cause the fish would feed there all day long. Sadly the water level is down now. Many lakes here on west side were stocked with triploids. Didn’t ruin a thing in fact the fishing was way better until the department ran out of money. But that’s a rant for another time.
 
In lbs, what the biggest WDFW planted triploid folks caught?
SF
 
I landed a 28 inch rainbow out of a regular limit lake. I am pretty sure that it was a triploid.

On the same day, I landed 8 fish from 19 inches to 28 inches. Not sure how many of those were triploids, I wasn't paying attention. I did kill and weigh the 19 inch fish and it was 3.5 lbs on the scale.

It is a funny lake, the department was managing it like a quality lake in the stocking, but kept it under the regular fish limit. The lake is now infested with warm water fish.

I think a lake like that would great for stocking with triploids. Now that the department is not killing out lakes, it might be worthwhile to stock lakes like that with triploids and put on a selective fishery trout limits of one fish a day over 18 inches. Those large triploids might be able to keep the population of the smaller trash fish down to a low roar.

This is the fly I came up with to fish the lake. I call it "Vladimir's Corral Lake Fly". As you can see that was the entire idea behind the design of the fly.

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Unfortunately, my friend that loves fishing Dry Falls Lake refuses to fish this lake with me anymore since he got totally skunked that day I caught those eight fish.
 
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