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JoAnn and I and our dogs decided to do a little exploring so for our second day of Memorial weekend fishing we headed north to Spectacle Lake. It’s around 35 miles north of Conconully. We got up a bit earlier than yesterday, hitting the road at 7:30, boat in the water by 8:30.

The WDFW launch at Spectacle is concrete slats, pretty good lunch. Cleanest toilet I’ve ever seen, LOL.
Something perhaps not everyone is aware of – Spectacle has kokanee. If you go to the WDFW page for the lake, it does not mention this at all. But if you go to the stocking reports, you’ll see the lake stocked yearly. I had visions of discovering more 14-15” shiny kokanee.

The lake has a couple deep regions that drop to 65 feet deep; one is right in front of the launch. We started there and again my plan was to run two leaded line rods and two downriggers. Same gear as yesterday, Arctic Fox Trolling Flies and small dodgers. Pink corn (tuna flavor) and orange corn (garlic flavor).

As we started deploying the leaded lines it became obvious that the downriggers were going to be totally unnecessary. Within a minute of putting the line out (2 ½ colors) it was “fish on”. The action was so steady I could hardly keep two rods running. Trolling speed was 1.0-1.3mph.

The size of these kokanee was unfortunately not as big as the upper Conconully Lake. We caught mostly 11 ½” fish with a couple smaller 9” fish. Our limits came a quick one hour later. This wasn’t a bad thing as we got off the water well before things got hot and were back to our cabin to enjoy a lazy day of relaxation.

I talked with a bass guy who mentioned that Spectacle is a very good largemouth bass lake, with fish into the 6+ pound range. For sure if you have kids and want to keep them entertained this would be a good choice to fish. My guess is the feed isn’t quite enough to allow these fish to get bigger, but hey, you never know, maybe next year…

fisherman92

6/2/2017 7:49:22 AM

Spectacle is awesome for bass! We go out and catch big largemouth and smallmouth in there! Before they poisoned it about 10 years ago I remember huge brown trout being pulled out of there too. I have made the trip there almost every year since I was born staying at Spectacle lake resort haha. I love the eastside for fishing with less people and just a different climate with less fishing pressure. And for the toilets, even on my trip to Goldendale a couple weeks ago the eastside keep their public facilities very clean which is nice! (unless you were being sarcastic..) lol.
Thanks for the report Mike!

Mike Carey

6/2/2017 12:25:42 PM

Ha ha, no I was serious about the toilet, lol. No doubt, fishing east side is worth the drive. The distance from puget sound will keep these lakes from being overrun.

Tallfisherman

6/2/2017 3:50:47 PM

Hey Mike, Thanks for another great report. The wife and I are headed up to Conconully lake for a couple of days and I noticed your report from there yesterday and was wondering if you could tell me how many colors of leaded line you were letting out up there. This will be our first time fishing with leaded line and not sure where to start at. If you could give me some ideal of how many to let out I sure would appreciate it. Thanks for the reports and the help Mike.

Mike Carey

6/5/2017 11:09:16 AM

2 1/2 to 3 colors. Good luck!

Tallfisherman

6/12/2017 7:21:11 PM

Thanks for the help Mike, We'll give that a try!!

bob johansen

6/3/2017 7:43:45 AM

Nice report Mike! I have had the pleasure of fishing that lake a few times - both for Rainbow and Largemouth Bass.

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