Left for Boise on the 25th of April came home the 9th of may. First stop was la grande to drop my driftboat at a friends and head for dereks house in Boise to load up his truck-camper-sled for the drive to cascade lake up north of boise. I had not been in this country for about 15 years, I used to spend a lot of time over here while traveling and have many friends in the area. we were going for rainbows at cascade and to stay at dereks family property at the lake. I also met his boy and daughter and had a great time with his whole family - great kids and wife! The fishing was a bust though, on the way up north we drove up the middle fork payette river, I had worked these tracks years ago and knew of its beauty and the world class rafting. the first day was horrible with rain, it was coming down like a western beach rain and just never stopped I could'nt believe how much it rained that day for Idaho never letting up all day, it blew-out an already high boise river and payette both going to flood stag over night. we were hoping the large rainbows of this huge res. were staging for the spawn but that seemed to never happen. we hit a few fish trolling the first day and I caught a few smaller fish with indi's and bead chain buggers but nothing special. the next day we woke up to snow and 25 MPH winds. the sled had a cab so we went out anyway and anchored by the dam where trout were known to stag for the spawn but no luck with walls of rain and snow coming accross the lake with winds hitting probably 35 MPH it just wasent happening so we made the choice to pack up and head to dereks and fish the owyhee river the next day from his home. Here is Dereks horse and chariot and a view of the valley the lake lays in- so then we headed to the owyhee river at the state line. great little river with browns and rainbows but mostly browns. the fishing I was told would be hard with selective fish, we fished the riffles at first hitting a few but nothing hot or no big numbers. I always had one eye watching the slow flats hoping for large risers when finally a hatch started to bring some of the large fish to the surface sipping. I switched from high-sticking to a #18 adams with a dry line and was able to fool a few of the larger class browns in the 18 to 20 inch range. skinny none fighting fish didn't pull very hard when hook but still fun to hook and land on small dries. the river fish's well, you can cross it at about any riffle being its a slow and shallow river. riffles flowing into long slow flats, the larger fish seemed to love the slow flats and tail-outs when we were fishing this time of year. I'm sure someone who has fished it more would have more knowledge of the river then me. the access was great with plenty of places to dry came as you drove the river. Derek After this I headed for la grande to hook-up with my friend been and fish thief valley res. rainbows. I had been fishing the river below the dam of this lake since the mid 80's and never had fished the lake. This trip was to target the lakes rainbows, My home-base being my friend ben's house in la grande, it was close enough to drive everyday to the lake. here is the view when you drive around the and start to drop to the high dessert lake, this is the first view you see with the elk-horn mountains for a backdrop. One of my fishing partners hank--- The horse and chariot - fish - dog- and my friend B en- fish pics- DOUBLE- CHIRONOMID- The lake was putting out large fish by the hundreds for the catch and keep people. by the end of the trip (fishing the lake for a week and a half) the larger fish were far and few between, once the good weather hit last saturday the slaughter was on with everyone keeping nothing but the large fish it just couldn't last. but people I had talked to said the lake had been putting out fish like this all winter and spring. limits for everyone. Ben did keep a few and I kept 2 out of over a hundred landed for the time fishing here. This lake is a gem, you just have 6to fish before the weather gets good in the spring for large fish. I was told they were catching 25 inchers through the ice this winter since the lake is open year round. chiro's were the ticket in tan with brown - and white bead. planing my next trip already --- crane - lava- wickiup- diamond !!!
Sorry to hear that Cascade lake was slow. My grandparents used to own property on the lake and my late grandfather used to fish it often. I have found memories of being just a young chap and he would take me fishing in his boat trolling ford fenders and night crawlers and us catching some nice trout. That was probably close to 30 years ago. Now I hear it has become a world class perch fishery. Too bad as it used to be a premier lake trout 3 decades ago. I am psyched about the report on Theif Valley. I will be there on Monday trying to catch one of those slabs before they become dinner for some bait chuckers. Hopefully the wind stays down as I will be in a Fat Cat. Water looks great - when I tried to fish it about this time last year - the wind was ripping and the water looked like chocolate milk with nobody on the lake fishing.
techniques used = fishing theif for the first time was a challenge as is any new water, so the first 3 to 4 hours we trolled me with a brown double bead-eyed brown woolly bugger with a little flash. kept the fish finder on to watch for depths and watch for flats. the deepest part was only 36 feet with most the lake around 20 feet. watching the swallows and where the birds concentrated really helps when fishing a new lake, they will tell you where the best hatches are by where they chose to fly over the water picking off insects. most of my fishing was with chiro's , the fish were working the rises to the flats in 12 to 8 feet of water. one day I laid out channel markers at 14 ft. and 8 ft. and anchored in the middle in 10 ft. of water. I had bought a 2 rod lic. so set up 2 - 5 wts. with floating lines and chironomids, I cast one rig to the 8 ft. marker and another to the 14 ft. marker. I had caught a few when the 8 ft. indicator went under - with one eye watching the 14 ft. rod so not to have the WFF curse of losing a rod to a fish - sure enough the indi went under and the fish was even bigger then the 18 incher on the shallow indi rod! playing two fish on both sides of the boat was not an easy task-I was able to net the 18 incher and throw rod and fish in the boat to play the larger fish going crazy on the deeper rod. I landed both and released the bigger fish that hit the deep rod and had to keep the shallow water caught fish since it was out of the water to long. one of the 2 I kept all the time fishing their. I quit fishing 2 rods in this spot right then. another day I went to the dam end looking for even bigger fish. reports of 25 inchers through the ice was haunting me and figured they might be in the deep water by the dam. the water was 36 feet deep and fish were being marked at 20 to 25 ft. so I rigged my 10 ft. 6wt. with 300 grain sinking tip (the sinking tip is colored different then the running line ) this enabled me to put chiro's straight down to 25 ft with the rod in a rod holder locked barely over the water, the wind was just enough to swing the boat slow with only one anchor down and move the mids alittle. I started rigging for 25 ft. with an indicator rod and before I could tie the leader a fish was jumping next to the boat, it had taken the deep sinking flies and jumped before I knew he was on, reeled him in and released! I also never saw another fly fisherman here. when I started using both rods the fishing was fast and furious but managed and missed a bunch on the indi rod. the fish were smaller here so I moved back to the river end of the lake where most of the big fish were being caught - but it was fun fishing the deep sinker and indi rod at the same time. here is a pic of the deep water channel marker, by using these I could adjust to the right depth anywhere I fished this spot - the bottom dropped from bank to deep water rather slow but constant without any flat spots so knowing exactly where the depths are really helps when keeping chironomids 1 to 2 feet off bottom at all times. it was a long cast to either marker and could adjust when fishing closer =
Wow, what a trip. Great report and super photos. 25 inch trout in stillwater....definitely on my bucket list.
Awesome report Mark! Love the detail on methods. I fished with Irafly last weekend on a lake where the fish were deep. We anchored up in 48 feet and he tried a 35' leader under an indicator and I fished a full sink. The full sink caught a lot of fish
15 take unders later, I finally hooked up. It wasn't the lack of interested takers, it was more my hook up ratio. I still think they could have been "biting" the swivel, no more swivel! Great report, my kind of Stillwater.
