Fishing
If you like spectacular numbers of teeny tiny sunfish, this was the place to be. While messing with them was fun, I was out after black crappies. Didn't find them, not a single one. But a few nice largemouth showed up, a worthwhile consolation prize. See the fish blog for more info.
A Rant
Sage Lakes from Long Lake east shore access road
Sometimes I really wonder what seeps through the minds of the WDFW administrators. They had a pair of seep lakes, the Sage Lakes, adjacent to the Long Lake reservoir in the Columbia Wildlife Preserve. They decided that they really really needed to improve fishing prospects by removing the "undesirable species," to replace them with hatchery rainbow trout. This is the same stereotypical plan imposed on numerous sanitized and effectively barren trout lakes nearby — the two Windmill Lakes, Canal Lake, Heart Lake, Marco Polo Lake, Corral Lake, many others. But poisoning lakes is what they do, so poisoning lakes is what they did. For the following two years, rainbow trout were reintroduced to the Sage Lakes, 500 fish per lake each year. Lacking road access, this was a challenge. Well, so much for the history of what happened five years ago. The typical life span of rainbows is 5 to 7 years, which means that the Sage Lakes are now effectively barren, like the other "managed" trout lakes in the area. Are we better off, seriously?
Why not have largemouth bass or black crappies in some of the smaller lakes like these? The warm-water fish can take care of themselves, and that means at least some of the lakes will offer something to catch.
Fishing
Nice to have some better news for a change. This is a highly unpredictable lake along the Potholes canal system. I was the only one at the lake, not counting the roughly 300 geese, gulls, and herons occupying the south end. Other than favorable weather, conditions were marginal. Despite hazards of snagging the stony bottom to reach smallmouth bass laying deep, I landed 7 of them and had close calls on others. It was worth the time.
Fishing
Read more in the Fishing Blog. Water levels were drawn down more than 6 feet. This is a disaster for a lake this small, leaving exposed banks covered in crusty muck, devastating acquatic plant life. Slimy green algae reduced visibility to less than 1 foot.
Expect the worst. This was once one of the best spiny ray lakes in the state, but this could be a disaster that takes years for recovery.
Fishing
Probably my last trip to this lake for the year, given that the access road closes in four days. Low water levels resulted in a tangle of floating weeds over most of the east end of the lake, spoiling shore fishing opportunities.
While fishing action was reasonable, I found the best action in an unexpected place. Check the fishing blog for more info.
Fishing
The morning session... difficult to get any response, but I managed to occasionally bring in small perch, bass, and pumpkinseed sunfish at breaks in the reeds along the north shore, using a neutral-colored jig. Where are the marauding packs of hefty perch that used to terrorize this lake? No idea, never found them.
The afternoon session... largemouth bass, mostly 10" to 12". They could not get enough of the neutral-brown finesse curly tail that I bounced over the submerged rocks on the south shore. What a contrast from the morning.
Fishing Sites
I thought I might try one of these locations, but took a pass.
Winchester was all but sterile. I can't say I was surprised. At the Road 3 launch area, the launch was too mucky to be usable. I might have been able to launch from the brushy shore beside the launch. I observed carp naviating along the barren bottom, just beyond the imposing line of shoreline slime. A few other carp splashed aggressively, far off-shore, who knows why. Pass. This was once a great place to take kids out to catch sunfish. What happened?
I checked out the launch at Blue Heron Park on Moses Lake. The launch was fine, but there wasn't much going on. The water was dense with slimy green particle algae, visibility zero. How is it possible that this place was ever considered a major fishing destination?
Fishing
Slow fishing. Omnipresent stringy weeds made everything difficult. Most of the fish I hooked were small. This was just too late in the season. Maybe next year...
The channel connecting Hutchinson to Shiner Lake was obstructed by a partial beaver dam. Getting watercraft past this was a major problem that I didn't want to solve.
Fishing
Bass fishing was acceptable, benefiting from circumstances that the smoke was temporarily pushed up and back by an intermittent southerly breeze. Bass generally collected near the steeper cliff faces, around the submerged basalt boulders. I caught two bass running 14 inches, plus a few more in the 10 to 12 inch range. The biggest inconvenience: it was almost impossible to distinguish a subtle pick-up by a hefty bass from hyper-aggressive mass-attacks by tiny bass that were just everywhere in the lake. The up-side, if there is a good survival rate, Lower Goose will be an incredible bass-fishing site in two years.
Hiking
I intended to give myself a little challenge. Well, I tell myself that I could have made it the seven miles over Cathedral Ridge to Spinola Meadow, but there were extenuating circumstances to use as an excuse for laziness. A tough winter dropped some serious wood-pile obstacles in the path, adding a couple hours delay. I stopped at Wince Lake for a late lunch and relaxing afternoon, but just couldn't get myself going again. The night was very quiet and comfortable, as good as it gets.
Never heard of Wince Lake? Obviously, you are not a PCT through-hiker from the 1960's. Check the hiking blog pages to learn about this little-known location and some unfortunate current conditions.
Fishing
There were smallmouth bass everywhere, but most likely to be encountered at depths around 15 feet, particularly below cliff faces and broken rocky slopes. Sizes ran mostly small, but there were enough in the 14" to 15" range to make the day worthwhile. Action started to pick up in the afternoon and accelerated through to early evening. But beware, the launch site is starting to become Little Acapulco. Check the fishing blog pages for more info.
General fishing rumors
Salmon runs are expected to be dismal this year. Maybe no fishing seasons?
There are some big bass in the Columbia... try out the areas above and below Crescent Bar. But you need a big boat to get to them. The currents in the Columbia are powerful and can be dangerous!
Hiking
What's up with the Icicle?
If you have been dismayed by the contradictory information about road and trail closures posted on the USFS Web site and recorded phone status messages, check the hikes blog for a first-hand report on the road and trail status in the Icicle River / Icicle Creek area.
Fishing
Though I caught 4 decent fish, the fishing action is distinctly poor. Visibility is down to about 2 feet (!) and the water, though relatively cool, has a cloudy green algae color.
Fishing
The unfriendly weather conditions didn't make much difference. Crappie were running nonstop almost everywhere, but particularly off the stony shorline of the west side. There were a few aggressive tiger and brown trout, and a few small but hungry pumkinseed sunfish. I used panfish worms exclusively, with very light weight, working slowly. Usually the strike was with the bait motionless but just above the bottom.
Warning: The WDFW has really fumbled the ball (boat?) on maintaining the north end public launch site, which at present is nowhere close to sane and functional. I was prepared to get a little wet and dirty dragging my boat in there, but the muck and thick rushes were much too much for me to penetrate. And that is really bad.
Fishing
The local hispanics were stacked along the shoreline, happily catching hatchery trout on their power-baits. I worked my way between them fishing along the north shore. I found smallmouth sitting just off the reeds in 6 to 10 feet of water, at all of the undisturbed locations. The trout were out deeper, apparently, and I did not bother them. Finesse worms or curly tails in watermelon to brown colors were sufficient for the bass. Though the action was intermittent, whenever I connected, the bass were energetic and the sizes ran good, in the 12" to 15" range.
As an experiment at the end of the day, I tried the shallow bay running NE of the launch site, and was surprised to find bass there too... plus a feisty 12" perch that fought almost as hard as the bass.
Fishing
A slow day, landing fewer than 20 fish through the afternoon. That was partly because I concentrated on jig fishing, hoping to cash in on a rush of eager crappies. Well, I did get a few, but not what I had hoped for. Except for the crappies, most of the fish were running small. For a while, when other activity was slack, I switched to a finesse bass worm, which caught the attention of two minor largemouth bass and an 18-incher. Just to see what would happen, I also played around with a floating micro-minnow lure; it got plenty of attention, particularly near shoreline reeds, but mostly from sunfish too small to actually grab anything.