Photo Essay: Mountain Trout

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Fishing Report: Quiet and Peaceful

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Just a great evening on the lake. It started windy, so I began by trolling a wooly bugger, but I hadn't gone twenty feet when I decided to cast it into the bank and strip it back. I had covered the whole back curve of the southern end of the lake when I saw a few fish--flippers--working up ahead. So I tied on a Stimulator and went to work on them. They weren't buying.

Still, I worked on up the west bank with the Stimulator until I found some more little fish jumping out of the weeds right up along this bank.

They also refused the Stimulator, so I tried a Cricket. Why, you ask? Why not? It's black; it's worked in the past. It worked today.
I lost another one a little bigger than that one in the weeds, then this little tiny trout nailed the cricket. Little fish, big spirit.
Then I lost another one. By then there weren't any more risers along that stretch, so I started to work back down the bank.
There weren't any fish rising, it was beautiful and peaceful, and I got distracted. I cast in--this was right up against the bank--then glanced away for just a second. When I looked back the cricket was gone and there was one tiny little ring expanding from where it had been. I set, I felt the fish for a heartbeat--and it was gone.

I think that was the fish of the day. The little guys give themselves away with splashy takes. This guy was just going to sip it and be on his way. I paid more attention after that.

Sometimes I hear rocks clattering down the scree slopes. Today I heard a clatter and then a roar. It was a bona fide slide, and raised a pretty good plume of dust. Always something happening.
The wind died down and everything got calm. I took a break and then fished a nymph and indicator while waiting for something to happen.

A few fish began rising, and then just like that tapered off. I had a chance at a fish that came up nearby, and cast a little Adams right on his head. He took and then promptly came off. Maybe I'm not setting with authority. I'm pretty sure he was a little one.
Things stayed quiet as the sun set and the moon rose higher.
Then the wind picked up again, one of this lake's famous night winds. I trolled a big circle in the moonlight with a big black wooly bugger. I wouldn't have minded if some twenty-two incher had cruised by and slammed the fly. But it didn't happen. The fish were quiet and peaceful.
And so was I.

Fishing Report: More Than Enough Reward

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Some people like to sit on their porch and enjoy the sunset. I like to enjoy sitting in the sunset.

I did fish as the day moved to its beautiful conclusion. I started in late afternoon when the sun was still high and hot. Fish were jumping at the north end over tall weeds that have almost reached the surface. Many were small, but some were decent. You could tell as they jumped two feet out of the water and flashed their colors in the sun.

I failed to find the magic fly, though I ran the gamut of flies and techniques, including everything that has worked in the recent past. I imagine some people would quit this pastime exactly because of that fact of fly fishing life. I find it makes me admire the wily trouts for keeping me off balance and humble. I respect them as worthy adversaries.

I did manage to hook one of the troutkins but he slipped the hook at the net, and that was the last fish that came that close. I can't even remember what he took--something on the surface.

I wandered over toward the big bay to see if any Drakes were hatching, but things shut down before I got there.

Later, in the near dark, I would play with some trout over in a cottonwood choked depression along the bank. I had a nymph on under an indicator by then, and they were hitting it but not hooking up. I was raising the rod to bring the line up to check the fly when one of them slammed it right at the float tube. I had him, but he broke off the 6X tippet and took the fly.

Meanwhile the glorious evening was running its course. Sometimes that's more than enough reward.

Fishing Report: Making a Break

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I had another chance to make a break for the lake.

It's a rite of Summer, going to the lake on these hot summer days. It's like diving into Summer's warm heart, immersing oneself in its essence. It has been a long time coming, but the last couple trips have allowed that experience.

Yesterday was a High Summer day.

I fished, trying a variety of flies and tactics. I got nothing to come up to a hopper, or any fly fished along the bank. The weeds are still subsurface. Soon the big cruisers will work the mats.

I also couldn't get anything to take a nymph, deep or under an indicator.

As they say, I just couldn't get a break.

The fish were there, and some would come up sporadically. I might call it random, but then life itself seems random as it unfolds like an infinite bloom in which all things have a place and a time and a purpose.

Perhaps my purpose then was to bask in the glorious day. This is the time of year when the RV fishers have gone elsewhere; I had the lake to myself. Well, along with the abundant life all around.

Welcome company, all.

I explored the latest blowdown, broken off in a windstorm last week. I was also trying to see one of the beavers I heard working away on it. They stayed out of sight, but their rhythmic gnawing was a constant accompaniment to the evening.

When I was here with Jeremiah last year he saw something I had never noticed before, that the tree had been gnawed by beavers almost all the way through. He was concerned that it might fall on us. It took a year and a windstorm, but all the random pieces finally came together to bring it down.
As evening deepened the lake seemed to heave a sigh and go to sleep. I waited for some kind of hatch, or an increase in feeding which often happens at dusk, but it didn't come. Not this time.
I trolled until dark with a black bead head leech, usually a reliable fly, but my puny efforts were not enough to overturn the turning of the living lake through its inscrutable patterns of existence.

On the drive out I came up suddenly on a pair of fawns. It was where the road climbs along the face of the ridge, so I followed them for a little ways before they found a place they could get off the road. A grown deer--like their Mom--would have leaped down or climbed up the steep hillside without a second thought.

But for awhile I herded them slowly along until they found the right place and the right time to make their break.

Some say we make our own breaks. As I came down the long winding road off the ridge to the main highway and made my break for home I was thinking, "Well, yes and no."

Fishing Report: Nice and Simple

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It was a simple evening trip to Trout Lake. The day had been busy and productive, so driving up to the lake in the old truck was like kicking back on the couch.

I put in at the south end, so there wasn't far to paddle. I could begin fishing prime water right at the launch.

The task at hand was simple: fish the evening hatch, whatever that might be.
It turned out to be nothing to get worked up about: midges mainly, and not any Caddis to speak of. So I relaxed, and just fished.
I had tied on a Caddis, just in case. All I had of the elk hair variety was pretty big. (Note to self: tie up some little Caddis. Make them simple.)

I was lazily moving the fly when this trout hit it. He thought it was just right.
I fished until dusk, drifting with the light breeze. A beaver swam by, a coyote yipped and howled, a doe swished through the lupine up above the shoreline willows, a Kingbird tried to eat my fly, and a Great Horned Owl announced the approach of darkness.

I didn't go hunting for another fish, and no more fish came to my fly.

But one was enough. Nice and simple.

Hmmmm....

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife:

Action: Anglers will be able to retain adult sockeye salmon in the mainstem Columbia River above Priest Rapids Dam and in the Okanogan and Similkameen Rivers beginning July 1, 2010.

Rule: Daily limit 6 salmon. Up to 3 adult chinook, of which only one wild adult chinook may be retained. Sockeye minimum size 12 inches. All coho and steelhead must be released. Release all sockeye and chinook with floy (anchor) tag attached. There is an anti-snagging and night closure in effect for Rocky Reach Dam to Turtle Rock and the Okanogan and Similkameen Rivers.