RattleSnake to Dry Falls (the novel))

[LeakyTiki]

LadyBug and I headed out to fish Beaver Lake early, well not early, but Saturday morning. On the way there, we changed our minds and decided to hit the Rattler instead.

When we pulled in around noon there were cars parked from hell to breakfast, some a mile from the lake. We cruised right up and nabbed a park at the top of the boat ramp ....Just in time for the Woolly Bugger hatch I figured.......:thumb

After getting both boats rigged up, and lines rigged up, waders on and making sure there was enough ice on the beer. I was spent.......But we went out anyway......Not before watching one guy fall out the bow of his Livingston....BRRRRRRR........

As usual, LadyBug, my fishing partner went to the front with an 8 to 1 lead on the fish count.:bawling I was ready to head back to our original destination when I hit an 18 incher....I couldn't leave NOW!......so we fished a bit more...She ended with 20 or so, 2 of the larger variety and I struggled my way to a dozen with one nice one.

Not long after HikePat left, she called me on the 2-way and said she was headed in for a break. Not 2 minutes later as I was paddling in, she says "you know, Dry Falls is only a couple of hours from here?"

Giddy-up

We stowed our gear in record time (for us) and headed east. Nice to meet wazu(sp) at the ramp as we were leaving.
:-)


By now it is almost seven, we have called the AlaCozy in Coulee city but they are full. Can you imagine? Beth says she'll sleep in the rig if she has to, but she bets me we can find a room in Ephrata or near the healing waters of Soap Lake. And we did...(Damn I love her) Our (my)only real concern at this point is will we make it to the CleElum liquor store before they pull the shutters. Well we made that stop with ten minutes to spare...:smokin

We rolled into Ephrata(Afraida what?) about 10 pm and booked a clean, comfortable room at the Sharlyn Motel. They did not have "Magic Fingers" but it was all good.

We awoke to a beautiful day at the ungodly hour (according to LadyBug) of 6 am Sunday morning. No latte stands were open so we roughed it with Shell station coffee and were off to DryFalls.

The line of Motor homes and campers beside Blue Lake was incredible and made me wonder if we had made a huge mistake. The Cutts must be done spawning at Lenore because all the knuckle draggers were done stomping on their beds.

We rolled in and parked right next to the launch at DryFalls as there were only a handfull of rigs there......... Sweet.............
We talked to a couple guys that fished Saturday and were skunked, yet back for more....

I'd love to tell ya we hit 'em hard and fast all day long , but being as I am a fly fisherman, I never lie...:rolleyes

We fished from 8 till about 2 landing 4 fish apiece. Ladybug netted 2 fish over 20" the biggest about 22" and 5 pounds or so. (picture below)
I caught my first Tiger and tail hooked a 20" bow that pulled like a freight train. All in all, a great day. A great weekend! The fish in that lake are so healthy and they fight that way !!!!!

Traffic was a breeze coming home over I-90 way better than I expected.

LT




:beer2

[WT]

Nice report and great pics!

[aaron j]

Good job! Always like the east side. Those tiger trout are definitely cool. What's the fly hanging out of the big rainbow? Glad to hear Dry Falls is producing some. It's always been only so-so for me; mostly because I don't like to bobber fish.

[Roper]

Now that's a goddam good report! (I'm Ephrata Bob Lawless may have a literary challenger here...)


Roper,

Life goes on, enjoy it...

[Tightline]

Team magic fingers!!!:rofl
Great report, and beautiful fish!

"you know, Dry Falls is only a couple of hours from here?"

Giddy-up"

Dude, I love it!

~B

:beer2

[LadyBug]

>Good job! Always like the east side. Those tiger trout
>are definitely cool. What's the fly hanging out of the
>big rainbow? Glad to hear Dry Falls is producing some.
>It's always been only so-so for me; mostly because I
>don't like to bobber fish.
>
Tiki and I don't much care for bobber fishing either. We watched one poor guy sit and stare at his bobber all day.... didn't see him get any fish on.
I caught the big one on an Olive Wolly Bug that David tied for me.... trooling deep, almost all the way to my backing. He was a 5 minute fight....Excellent, healthy fish!

LB ;)

"Game fish are to valuable to be caught only once" - Lee Wulff

[Jason]

Good report, that guy in the livingston was hillarious.
I thought that was you (Leaky Tiki and Lady Bug) you were getting in right next to us (YoungandEager and I) along with our grandfather as we were deciding to go back out or not.

[Wazoo]

LT,

It was good to meet you also. Sounds like the weekend continued to be good to you. I hung around Rattlesnake until about 8:00. Managed to play with several of the 8 - 10 inchers, but as you said they have a lot of fight for their size. I did manage one 18" trip. It was a great day.

Wazoo

[LeakyTiki]

NewGuy,
Ya should have said hello. I do remember seeing your brand new Snohomish pontoon boat but didn't put 2 and 2 together till I saw your post.
It's awesome you guys take your Grandad out fishing:thumb
See ya next time,
David

[Jason]

Grandpa got skunked, he left his sinking line at home. I now know why you need an anchor with a pontoon. Before I knew it I was down in the stumps at the other end of the lake.

[ChrisW]

Here is my opening day Rattlesnake report, a few days late, but I couldn't resist. First I'll begin with a short story........

Two weeks ago there were a few hundred carryovers enjoying the warming water and increased bug activity, a tasty chironomid here, a juicy leech there. Only the occaisional osprey or eagle to worry about, a justifiable occupational hazard when you live in such a pretty place.

Then one day day WHAM! There's 17,000 new "soldiers of misfortune" added to their midst. They are just adapting to this new competition, sorting out the territory , then one Saturday, WHAM! There are hundreds of humans in every possible watercraft, dredging skating and twitching every possible deception their way. The carnage is unbelievable. Talk about invasion of the body snatchers! Can you imagine what the trout were thinking? :eek :eek :eek

Got to the Lake at 7:00am, wondered if the gate would be open. It was. And there was a 15 minute wait to get to the boat launch. I unloaded the kayak and U turned on the one way road to go park and got one of the last spots left in the whole place. All in all there was about a hundred boats of all types on the lake that morning. And I mean all types. Someone had a fire going on the beach. There were swim bladders floating at the surface. WDFW officers were cruising around with a trolling motor and binocs looking for likely violators. To their credit, the officers were letting the crowds enjoy themselves instead of randomly checking for licenses and barbless, baitless hooks. I did see one boat get pulled over. They had a 115 horse outboard on the back, with 15 horse kicker alongside. They were using just the trolling motor on the bow but I'm sure they got cited.

I stuck it out for two hours and managed 5 fish to hand. After 9:30 or so the fish seemed to figure it out and went deep. A switch to a sinking line and a marabou streamer brought in the last one of the day. No big lunkers, but I saw a few caught over 24". There was a WDFW fish check person at the ramp, he figured there was a lot of Pine Lake people since that lake was closed for the opener. I bet he was right. He estimated that they would see 1/4 to 1/3 of the fish taken from the lake that day, as most people were "leaving with their limits". The P-I reported 2.3 fish per angler with twice that released, which was a good sign.

That is such a nice area, especially being so close to Seattle and it took quite a beating that day I'm sure.

Didn't Rattlesnake used to have a one fish limit?
I sure hope Pine Lake opens soon....

BH

[clockwork]

Beadhead: my god, after seeing that pic, i almost threw up. brings tears to my eyes. that was my home land. i am now a refugee. if you took out all the boats in that lake, you could probably watch the water level drop! on a lighter note, there's plenty of shade for the fish! -ryan

[spanishfly]

Beadhead, thanks for the pic now I'm going to have reoccurring nightmares...I saw that when I pulled up on Saturday as well and did the same thing Leaky did and high tailed it out of there. I drove east and hit the Yak. Great day couldn't keep the smolt off the line but better then catching abunch of float tubes...
Leaky, GREAT report:thumb Dude you have the life!

[LeakyTiki]

SpanishFly,
Where ya fishin' this weekend?
Come meet us in the Met-how
as the locals say it. One of my buddies is taking his camper. Highway 20 is a beautiful ride if you aren't familiar...
The only time my gal gets pissed about my fishing is when she doesn't get to go. I am kinda lucky like that;-)

LT:beer2