Oh what a day. Read a report about this little lake. Up in the Methow Valley, little 11 acre lake (looked a lot smaller then that) that held big rainbows. So I google mapped it out, had everything planned out, loaded up and took off this morning. Google said about 1 hour to get there. Well we were coming from the east side near Okanogan and found out the hard way that google was wrong. It lead to a dirt road that ended up going to a sort of "goat trail" as one lady put it, or possibly a bike trail because it appeared to be a single track and up in the Methow they've got a lot of bike trails. So it was fenced off and no way of driving a car there from the south.

We took about 1.5 to 2 hours finding this out, backtracking, going on I think a private road, oops. Finally we decide to go the other route. We go back south to the State Route 20, west to Twisp and up a backroad towards the golf course and Davis Lake. Then take what we thought was the right turn in the road to get there, talk to a lady and she mentions the other way is easier... So we drive back down the hill, more primitive road, yada yada. Finally we come to another intersection that's poorly marked and we see that continuing straight goes up some mountain, where as the right seems to lead to a valley full of green trees, so right we go... finally we see the lake from a distance. So some 2.5-3 hours since leaving home we find this hidden lake and unload our boats.

With selective rules and a catch and release season I take my pontoon and fly rod as usual. My Dad has his aluminum boat and ultra light gear. We both land fish, a total of 6 between us, all between 14-15". With TONS of bites and a few lost hookups to boot. I found from my opinion, these fish were much different fighters then previous rainbows I've caught. They didn't run for me. I'd hook em and right from the start they'd thrash HEAVILY without running, just head shake constantly. I've lost a lot of fish that were smart enough to do this, fortunately I'd lost enough to learn my mistakes and I reeled them in hard. Even with them head shaking the entire way to the pontoon they'd still have energy to spin around me, and of course, shake shake shake. It was great!

The three fish I landed were all very vibrantly colored and what appeared to be VERY well fed. We only fished for a couple of hours with our having to find our own way up in the hills. But it was an excellent little lake. It's oddly shaped so it's sort of like you row up to one end, turn around and come right back. There are weeds around the entire rim of the lake, but once you get out a few feet it starts to drop dramatically, i wish I had a depth finder, I might have been very surprised with how deep it really is.

For me the fish took bites on just about everything. I used a black woolly bugger at first and got a few bites, next was a damsel which landed the 3 fish, lastly I tried an eel which got bites as I wanted to try something new. I gave my Dad my fly pole and used my old one at the end. I put on an interesting woolly bugger for him, green body with a tan sort of tail and hair around the body, whatever that's called, hackle? He hasn't fly fished for years, so to see him having hookups with fish was fun to watch. He had his chances but he didn't land em haha. That bugger gave him dozens of bites if I heard him right and two solid hookups with fish that he couldn't quite get in. There's always next time. Funniest part of it was him repetitively asking, "Are you sure I'm not hitting the weeds?" or something to that effect. I just had to laugh and say nope, you're trolling faster then I was and I never hit them. I think it was hard for him to believe he was getting so many strikes. It was crazy out there.

On his ultralight he brought them in on a hotshot and a rebel grasshopper lure.

It's a fun lake but because of the long drive and bumpy roads I probably won't be back or if I do it will be many years down the road. Plus it fishes so much like a couple lakes in my area that aren't as far. But for a pontoon or float tube this little lake might be ideal.

Good lake, beautiful fish, bit of a rough road. It was definitely beautiful scenery in the area and was fun to get out and explore a little. Some big hawks soared over us and a deer played in the water. Also found out that my new scotty fly rod holder works great, now I won't lose so many fish now, hooray!

Tight lines all.

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