Big Green

I just had to go back out to see if it was just Wednesday that the fishin was so good.
under overcast skies with some light rain and some blue skies peeking thru 57 at 10 AM. I was in the water just after Jim and Steve from Woodinville WA I wasn't more than 20 feet again with my first hook up. this time I had put on a Punkinhead, on my clear intermittent line and I don't think it got more than 3 ft. deep before I even started to strip my line was tight and my rod was bent. Gota love fishin with a 3 weight!!!! By the time I made it from the launch to the north end maybe 150 yards I hooked at least 7 fish and a floating stick.

On the north end the water was calm and the hatch was getting on I pulled in my line and picked up my other 3 weight with a dry line put on a size 16 Calibates emerger and chucked it out close to the weeds within seconds GULP. this went on for maybe 30 minutes until the wind was to strong and I couldn't see the fly. The wind keep picking up speed so I let the wind swing me around and I dropped anchor and change out to a bobber and chromimide and let the wind bounce my bobber.

Stupid kind of fun!!!! yes fish after fish. I pulled up anchor and just let the wind blow me back down towards the launch, dragging my Punkinhead again. at 1:30 my big guts were eating at my little guts and I didn't want to deal with the wind any more.

Steve and Jim were right behind me the wind getting to them too.  We talked while loading up our gear. they had fished Omak the day before and Aeneas on Wen. and wasn't quite sure as to where they were going to fish next. They asked about Buzzard and I filled them in about Gary and my experience,  so there thinkin maybe doing Big Blue
.
Yes the fish aren't monsters but if you gear down from that 5 or 6 weight it's a blast. this would be a great lake to take a kid fishin with all the action they could be hooked for life. I can't hardly wait for Anna the grand- daughter to come see us and I can take her out with me.        

Fish Finder Mount

Mount

The new fish finder mount, Gary has been using his fish finder to find out mostly how deep the water is. I have a very old Fishing Buddy and this year I up graded to a new on smaller screen but now it’s color. 

I liked the mount that he had on his but thought of a few changes to it to suit me a little better. Made of PVC pipe and goes on and off the Buck’s Bag frame real EZ. It's out of the way so that my fins don't hit it either in the water or while on the rest. Still plenty close enough to read and out of the way for casting and fighting fish and landing. 

Buzzard in the morning & Big Green in the afternoon

      I made it back up to Buzz and the lake was like glass but that didn’t last long. Gary showed up about 10 minutes later. I finished rigging up as the wind came in just before I pushed off from shore.

Like I stated in the earlier post there is still traces of snow around the lake the water temp is in the low 50 bouncing from 52-3 down to 50-1 my fish finder showed that I was in 18ft of water and I marked 3 fish at 9 ft. and some smaller ones on the bottom.

     Gary was in the water less than 15 minutes after me so at the latest it was 10 AM. I worked my way around the lake and didn’t touch a fish trying just about everything I could think of. With pounding the shore line with Prince Nymphs, Gray Scuds, leaches, and not ever seeing any more sign of fish. At just about quarter to twelve I got a tug but it didn’t last long and it wasn’t very much.

     Gary and I meet back up and he was having the same kind of luck as I.

     I suggested that we go hit Big Green for a while just to see how the fresh plants were doing. So we headed out and got to Big Green by 1:15 and into the water by 1:30. I wasn’t but maybe 20 feet from shore and Bam fish on it wasn’t big at 13 inches but it was action. I still had my mini leach on and when Gary got into the water he still had on his Zug Bug and in no time he too was into fish.

       After catching my forth fish I hooked something on the bottom and broke off.  So Not knowing what Gary had on (yea right) I found one of the Zug Bugs that he had tyed up for me and put that on. 

For a while there it was a fish with every cast, the fish aren’t that big but fighters and very air born.                                                  By 4 both of us needed to pack it in.

So with all that being said: Buzzard needs to warm up so I’ll give it a few more weeks, and talk to Ryan.

As for Big Green it was fun the water temp was 61 the fly of the day was either a mini leach or a Zug Bug it was a bit overcast a little windy but caught lots of fishies. Almost stupid funnnnnn.    My biggest was may be 14 smallest was maybe 8-9.

Buzzard Lake

Monday
After hearing that the road up to Buzzard was impassable with trees down across the road. So early today I ventured out to see for myself,  I stopped off and picked up my 84 yr young friend Richard.        About 3/4 of the way in a truck was on the way out and we stop and I talked on the road for just a short while.     Yes there were trees down it looked like from an early spring or later winter wind storm.
      Jim had gone up at just after six last nite and he was the one to clear the road with his trusty small fire wood saw he cut and moved the downed trees so that he could get in and camp for the nite and get some early AM fishing in before he headed up to Big Blue, Jim had driven over from Lacey WA. to fish Blue, Aeneas, maybe Chopaka. spend the next week or so here.

     Jim told me that he only fished for about a hour before the wind came up and that he was going to meet up with a couple of other guys at Blue, and that another angler was just pulling into the launch area just as he was hitting the road.
    We wished each other the best of luck and happy fishing and headed off in different directions.

Went I pulled into the launch, Ron from Wenatchee was there rigging up the wind was blowin pretty good but that wasn't going to stop him, this is one of his favorite lakes in early spring. with some snow still on the ground is places. Ron told me that he has to stop and fish here whenever he can and that he too was going up to Big Blue to fish the rest of the week.

    I need to mention that the burn was pretty bad getting up to the lake but didn't make it to it. so it's just as beautiful as ever. Just about as soon as you get off HWY 20 you can see where the fire was 2 miles up the logging starts so watch out for the logging trucks if you head out during the work week. They have cut a lot of trees and there is so many more to come down . at 3 maybe 4. 5 miles you'll see some of the landing decks with stacks of logs to be hauled out. Just be careful I know how fast them guys drive, been there did that for a very short time.

I'm going to try to fish it on Wednesday if not it will be soon. So many lakes so fast of a season!!!!
                             **** Tight Lines my friends hope to see ya on the water*****    

Big Blue Lake Sinlahekin

Sunday 
I was looking for someplace else to fish on of opening weekend. Aeneas was awesome but I needed to stretch out and hit some different water. 
  It was cooler and a little windy with spotted rain showers.  I waited as long as I could for the weather to break then headed for Blue Lake in the Sinlahekin.
  Arriving at about 1 in the afternoon I found the lake had a number of campers at the south end, and the north campsites where about ¾ full. 
   The weather was cool with rain and a strong wind coming out of the north.  There were very few people on the lake actually fishing.  Although I like to fish the middle section of the lake I decided to fish the north end, as I did not want to fight the wind back from the middle section.  The water temp was 56 degrees and the lake was higher than I have seen it in the past few years.  The fishing was very slow to start with.
  I changed a number of my favorite flies for this lake with limited success. 
       Finally I hit the right combination of line and fly and things got a lot better.  After fishing for over an hour with only a few strikes and one fish netted, the last hour or so resulted in about 10 fish netted.  The fish ran in size from 16 inches to a small of 12.  With the exception of one large buck, they were all bright and healthy.  The wind and rain finally got the better of me and I left the water around 4ish.  By the time I finished fishing almost all the people in the north campsites had left and the lake was practically empty.  
              Despite the wind and rain it was a great time. 
 The fish were bright and the fires of last summer did not completely destroy the scenery.

A very late Lost Lake report was found.

Gary took his 90 year old neighbor to Lost Lake on Wed. 9-16 so I asked him to send me a report.

        It was a beautiful day on Wed, sunny no wind in the valley, a perfect day to take my 90 year old neighbor to lost lake.  We arrived at about 11:00 the lake was calm with a little overcast.  Water was at about 58 degrees and we had the lake almost to ourselves, the only other person on the lake turned out to be a friend of Bill’s. Bill put on his favorite deer hair fly and I put on my zug bug and we started out.  Bill has a problem with his shoulder so he cant cast very well, this forced us to troll a wet fly in search of fish.   It wasn’t long before we started getting some strikes.  I brought a nice 12-13 inch brook to the boat when we realized that we had forgotten the net.  This would haunt Bill later.

      As it turned out we were catching four different sizes of  fish in the lake.  We had a few that were about 6-8 inches, more at 8-10 inches, and several at 12-14 inches. Bill did get a fish that looked to be about 18 inches to the boat but he broke off when we tried to get him into the boat without a net.  The fishing was not fast but we had strikes often enough to keep our interest high.  We both had a lot of tugs that did not set , I imagine it was the smaller fish slapping at our flies.  We both changed flies and fly size often but it did not seem to matter.  As the day progressed the wind came up at times making the fishing a little harder.  My wife loves brook trout and I was told to bring some home for diner, by about  3:30 I had enough fish in the 12/14 range to cook for diner and  Bill was getting tired so we called it a day.  We talked with Ken (the other fly guy on the lake) and he had about the same success as we had.  Overall the fishing was not great (brook trout are fickle beasts) but it was well worth the trip up.

Aeneas Lake the opener:

      **** I was asked to do the creel report for Ryan our Biologist. I arrived at 7:35 stopped on top of the hill, and took account of fishers on the water by 8 AM, and talk to as many anglers as possible and the count again at noon.

    At 8, four anglers on the water, Gary and RB where at the launch getting ready to go out, and it wasn’t until about 9 before I was ready to be fishing myself, I worked my way around the lake from the launch along the eastside over towards Ken’s house on the northeast corner, I found Chuck R of Oroville, fishing Chromimids in 18-20 feet of water. He is one guy that is always there for opening and first thing he says to me, Hi Putmbac good to see ya, enjoy your blog. When I asked him what time he got on the water and how has the fishing been doin for him? “Damn slow just a few hook ups, been here since 7. Can’t believe how calm the water is haven’t see it look like glass in a very long time.” Chuck was right the whole lake looked like glass flat and water clear. Here it’s late April and the water temperature is already 61. The sky was overcast with some big blackish clouds.

I talked to a couple of other guys and they all pretty much said the samething that it was slow.

      I did pull out one Bow dragging my Punkinhead it was long and skinny at 13inches.

By 10 Bob P.  in his mid 80s put in and Bill O. now 93 where putin in their boats Ken and his wife were getting ready to launch and there were a couple of other back at the launch where I put in.

I dropped anchor in 9 foot of water changed out to my Sage RPL and put on a # 16 Chromie snowcone and moved the indicator to about what was about six inched above the weeds and gave it a fling of 50 feet. It wasn’t long before bobber down and my first real fighting fish. Nice 16 inch fat and healthy Bow. I stayed there for a while with many more until I hooked two more fish that both found something to wrap the line around and break me off.  After re-rigging twice I pulled anchor and moved off a ways.

      The guys trolling around weren’t doing so good but the ones that knew what to look for could see the size of the shucks had changed out to match the hatch and were doing real good.

By noon Gary, Scott, RB and I headed over to Doc’s parents place to meet up with Doctor Dave to talk and do some planning for our BC trip in June. We set the dates, figured out what to eat. I’ll do the research as to where we’ll be staying and the lakes to fish this year. Seven days 6 lakes.

By 12:45 we were all back into the water I gave RB a couple of flies and a little advice as to how to fish them and he did great the rest of the afternoon.

                    We were off the water by 3:15 all had another fun time.

Heard from Ryan that the road to buzzard is still pretty bad It’s raining here now so guess I’ll do some chores help Ginny make me some cookies glue up the new mount for the fish finder and maybe mow the lawn. YEA RIGHT!!  

         It's always a great time with good friends on the water and seeing some of the other guys that you only see every now and then. Like Bob in his eighties,  he is a great fisherman with lots of knowledge. and to see Bill still at it at 90+  still out rowin around can't cast far anymore but he can still catch fish after fish and have a fun time. I just hope I can still be at it with the same passion later in life.         

Limebelt Blue Lake

Gary and Scott met me at LB Blue Lake today at 10am. The road into blue is pretty messy with a lot of water over the road a couple of big puddles one was deep enough to come up over the running boards of my Chevy truck, diffidently want 4 wheel drive, also I should mention there is some logging going on to clean up some of the burnt trees. Quit a few trees burned around the lake. It's still one of the most beautiful lake around.

To day the wind was blowin out of the north maybe 15-16 miles some white caps and it lasted up until we were getting ready to leave. water temp. was warmer than I expected at 56.

The fishing was great with 1 Cuttbow, 1 Rainbow (long and thin), and way to many Brookies to count my biggest was maybe 15 but with my 4w it was fun. I caught almost everything on a Punkinhead on a type 4 sink line and most were in 12-15 feet of water, Gary and I only fished the the north of the lake and towards the end the NE shore line heading back to our trucks.

Scott ventured down to the south end getting used to his new pontoon boat, he said he did great down there and their is no reason not to believe him. So all in all the three of us had the windy lake all to ourselfs and had a great time.
                           I'll be heading back there soon.

 

Remembering a good friend.

I got word that sadden me, my good friend Mr. Pat Holden passed away. Pat and I spent countless hours fishing with Pat on the Methow River for Steelhead, Boulder Creek, Salmon Creek, both of the lakes of Conconully, teaching him how to Chronimide fishing out at Green Lake and taking him up to Chopaka Lake for the first time. We spent many hours side by side learning and teaching each other different tying styles and technics, Pat was an old old school fly tyer and tyed many of the great classics I have some hanging on my walls.
      Even tho he wore a peg leg and was sometime slow to getting where he wanted us to go when we got there it was always well worth it. I never forget the first time him and I went up to Boulder Creek together, and him bush wacking through the brush to get to this little spot that he had fished some years back. Him finding the place that he had to camp because his car wouldn't start. how he told the story when the first two or three cars when by he missed couldn't get to the road fast enough to flag them down. He was able to catch a few fish build a small fire and cooked up the fish on a stick over the flames. How the bugs ate him alive and how he itched for the next week.

Pat didn't mind catching little fish but was sometimes over joyed when he hooked a big one got so excited that in the most part almost lost it.

Patrick my friend I will miss you and I know you are in a much better place now no more pain the fish are many you'll be playing with all your past dogs and having a bent Sage rod held tight in your hand and the line with just the right tightness to land that lunker.

REST IN PEACE MY FRIEND I'LL MISS YOU AND THANK FOR THE MEMORIES.

Fancher's Dam

It was a  beautiful day and with all the warm weather we have been having I knew Fancher Dam would finally be ice free.   I finished my morning chores and headed to the lake just after lunch.  Arriving around 1:30 I found that I had the lake practically all to myself with only one gear guy tossing worms from the shore.   It did not take long before I was on the water and had a zug bug  on the end of an intermediate line headed for the water.  The water temp was at 47* and there was just a little breeze blowing from the west.  It did not take long before the rod tip started to bounce.  It was a 10 inch bow that was bright and active for a small fish.

By the time I reached the east end of the lake I had released  4 fish , three bows and a brook  all about 8-10 inches and skinny.  After loosing my fly to a stump  I put on a black micro leech.  It  did not take long before the end of my rod took a dive to the water.  The fish turned out to be a 13 inch bow but again it was skinny.

I fished the lake for a little over three hours and released between 15 and 20 fish.  The mix was about a 50-50 mix of bows and brooks.  About 4 were in the 12-13 inch range the rest 8-10.  All the fish were bright but skinny and not the fat bright fish I am used to catching here.  I hope that with some time they will fill out and put on some shoulders.

Despite the size of the fish it was a great afternoon on the water.  Clear day , slight breeze, great scenery and enough action to keep my attention.  One word of caution, the lake is not full so the large number of tree stumps at the east end of the lake will take a few flies and tippet.

As written by Gary

Omak Lake

I grabbed my Sage "The One" a box of Omak Lk. flies, change out reels and headed back down to Omak Lake. It's always fun, this time of year the LaHotan Cutt's are cruzen the shore line. Spot fishing with micro mini leaches work for me. The south end or Cow Pie beach is hard to get to unless you want to take the long way around or take the Cameron Lake road to Cold Springs Rd. That's a lot of traveling the Columbia River Road is closed at the turn off to Beer Can Beach.

I've been out there quite a few times and every time i see some monster fish and I catch my fair share. the wind is the biggest factor it could be dead calm one minute and a strong gail the next. So a good stiff rod is recommended I like my Sage One #6 It punches through the wind like no other. The flies most people like are Woolly Buggers in either black or olive. I like throwing small stuff and what works for me may not be the ticket for others. I,m still trying to beat my catch record out there of 13 pounds, at just over 33 inches and weighted at the Safeway store in Omak. It was put in the smoker and I will never bring one home again. It tasted like ?XZ?/ .
Most are like draging in a boot while other will put up a good fight, you just never know.
       A couple of weeks ago there were maybe 15 people fishing on the north shore most of them huddled up close to one another and all from the Wetside. Some had returned and made the trip many times. while others in the group this was their first trip. I stopped and talked with them both on the way into my favorite spot and back out I had only been fishing foe just over a hour and hooked and landed 12 fish my biggest that day was a nice 26 incher. I got broke off twice and lost a fly to the rocks.
One of them asked what I was using and I showed him and gave him two of my Mini leaches The next day I say him at the gas station and he thanked me again and told me he out fished his partner for the very first time. and it was that fly I got from you.

My Buddy Nick has been going alot lately too, and he told me when he was there yesterday that he saw lots of 2-4 fish swimming around and the bigger boy were eating them up like candy.