by The Troutist, June 18, 2013

This past weekend my brother Brett made the trek up here from Oregon to work a few lakes that we hadn’t visited in quite some time. As most of you know we try and work different lakes give you our experience on them and what worked for us. I will then post the photos on my Uncle Wes Facebook page for all to view. This year I have worked lakes in Mason, Thurston, and Lewis County. Strictly by coincidence it seems Brett’s visits seem to fall on holidays and even opening day. This past weekend was no different this was free fishing weekend which is a great way to promote the sport. Unfortunately for us these special days generally mean more anglers making it a bit more challenging to work the water the way we need to. Okay that’s my boo-hoo story for the day. I know that there are a lot of folks out that what would love the opportunity to visit multiple lakes like we do.

This past Saturday had us on a road trip headed for Mineral Lake about 11 miles out of Morton. We were up at the crack of dawn and after a few stops for fuel and munchies we were on the water by 8am. This was not exactly what we had planned but oh well that’s the way it goes. We arrived to a full main parking lot and even the overflow parking area was ¾’s full leaving me just enough space to park. The concrete ramp here is in excellent shape with docks to tie your boat off to. This lake also offers a few areas for bank anglers to join in the fun also and for a fee you can angle from the Mineral Lake Resorts fishing dock.

This lake covers 277 acres and reaches depths of around 40 feet, very workable water that needs no downriggers to catch trout. This lake also has an 8MPH speed limit making it very comfortable to work, although there are always a few that can’t read the big speed limit sign right at the ramp. This day I only counted four morons that couldn’t comprehend what 8MPH was. It was nice to see that so many other folks knew how to work there middle fingers. For those of you that don’t really care about battling rainbows and brown trout but are just happy to be on the water you are in luck. This lake offers some very scenic views of Mt. Rainer and this lake is one of the few with public access that is not developed around the whole lake.

Brett and I decided early on that we were going to work the whole lake and try different color combinations and see what was working best and at what times of the day they produced the best. I started out with a black bugger and a purple smile blade and Brett with an olive bugger and a green blade, we changed color combinations throughout the day. Brown bugger with a bronze blade, olive and black bugger with a green blade, and an olive bugger with a black blade, all of these produced at least one trout each. The top producer in the morning was a black bugger with a purple blade, the afternoon it was the olive bugger with a green blade. We hooked and released a total of 26 all in the 11-13 inch range, Brett kept one, a very fat 14-inch brown which by the way I have never had the pleasure of hooking up with.

These trout are all very feisty and put up great battles as we brought them to the boat. For those of you that are interested the still anglers were working the bottom of the lake with Power Bait and other trollers were pulling hardware with wedding rings tipped with a chunk of a night crawler. All of these methods were producing limits. For those of you that think you will be left out of the fun because you don’t have a boat well you can relax they have boat rentals and also the big pontoon boats for those of you that want to bring your family and friends. If you have never had the chance to visit this lake and enjoy the fishery I would definitely recommend adding this lake to your bucket list for this year. As always I have posted the photos of this lake on my Uncle Wes face book page. So until next time may your next trout be your trophy mount. The Troutist-“Uncle Wes” Malmberg.

So until next time may your next trout be your trophy mount.

The Troutist-“Uncle Wes” Malmberg.




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