Lake Spokane / Long Lake clarification

[Anglinarcher]

Nik and Gisteppo, I think I understand where both of you are coming from here, and I actually support both of you.

Gisteppo, if I did not think I would be a real pain, I would beg you to let me launch at your launch site during the summer.:jocolor: :pale:

Like Nik, I want to be on the water at o-dark thirty, and I like to get off about the same time. At Liberty I have my wife go with me in the afternoon, I launch the boat, and I either anchor up and sleep on the far side of the lake or I fish all night. Now that is a lot of work to get there for the "early morning bite". :shaking:

My wife does not want to drive that far for Long/Spokane, so I have not figured out quite what to do yet. I also have not learned all of the rules, so Can I park overnight at any of the three sites, leave the vehicle in the lot, and stay on the water all night?:-k

Nik, I concur that CDA has more access, but it also seems more like a zoo there. I love the Pike, but I don't think I would agree about CDA being a trophy bass lake. Still, if I don't mind running the lake, I can usually find a launch somewhere.

If Long/Spokane had the same access as CDA, then we would see nothing but a zoo out there. For the size of the lake, three public launches is actually pretty good. If I could figure out how to get early/late access, I'd call that puddle a favorite place of mine. Now, as it is, I usually only a place I go when I get tired of other places, or I can't help seeing all of the reports that come off it.

I guess both lakes have their problems.

[Gisteppo]

AA, I have a solution for you, if you are in desperate need.

You can leave the rig overnight at BLM, if you are fishing that end. You can also leave a vehicle at the resort, but I think you need to pay an overnight fee.

If you want to fish this end, because you are a good guy, and because I have the ability to do background investigations on people, I can offer up a little dock space or at least a spot to anchor the boat. You can launch at 9 mile and bring it down to my place. We have a long section of gravel driveway you can bring the truck down to park, and you can either end tie on the dock or I can move the hewes over to the beach and you can tie up on one side of the dock. Keys need to be left for the boat in the event weather or other issues happen (have had some major issues in the past, need to be able to move the boats into a raft on one side or other of the dock). There are a million great places to anchor out as well, I can show you a few of my faves.

You can leave it out there for a day or two at a time if you are hitting it hard over a weekend.

As for the morning bite trick, just launch at Spokane House when you get there, regardless of the hour. Mac and Moose (yes, those are their names) are more concerned about people staying past dusk than they are early launchers. I'd be rather surprised at a citation for that, and you can always stop by the ranger station to iron it out when you get off the water.

Thanks Aaron!

E

[Nik]

It is true that if you want to night fish or early morning fish you can go to the BLM launch past Tum Tum and launch your boat before 10 pm, and then leave it on the dock until you are ready to go fishing. Unfortunately due to the free camping and the picnic area there is almost always some rather unsavory type characters out there camping/fishing/drinking/god knows what else, so i'm not exactly comfortable with leaving my boat moored at the dock overnight. if you were going to fish all night though that would be an excellent option, just know that if something happens you're either stuck at the launch until about 6 am or you're going to have to hike up the ridiculously long and steep launch road to wake up a not so happy campground host to beg them to come and unlock the gate for you. you could also leave the boat on the trailer with your truck down in the parking lot, which makes it harder to steal but just as easy to vandalize.

good to know about launching early at the Spokane launch though, I've done it many times but always had that feeling that i was going to get busted sooner or later.