I saw that Nahwatzel was stocked first week of October. It is one of my favorites for bigger trout. I was solo on this trip. So I trailered my 14' Mirrocraft from Bremerton to the lake. Launched at around 9am fished to about 2pm. There were about 5-6 other boats on the lake this day. It was a lot about the 12" to 14" trout with an occasional much bigger fish which made it all the more exciting. If you fished lures trolling which i did for sometime I seemed to get fish between 12 and 14 inches common place. I saw others using POP gear doing well too. I kept it real simple and used a Needle fish fire tiger size zero with an half once weight about 75' back. Thanks Tim Kliontz for the suggestion.

After a while I switched methods and gear and I targeted with green powerbait eggs in 10-14 feet of water bigger trout. By the way if you fish with Powerbait you can only catch 5 fish whether or not you keep them as I see in the fishing reg's.

Anyway when I bottom fish for trout from my boat I actually like to drop an anchor on the bow and the stern. I know it's a lot work especially solo. But I find it you do this it locks the movement down on the boat and you gain the benefit of keeping lines tighter with less movement on the bottom. The bigger fish indeed today seemed to be deep as I found out. I lost one huge trout around 18" -20" inches by hitting the leader with the net ! I was a little spun up I think trying solo to net and keep the fish from my anchor lines etc as well. I was using a Lighting 5'6" Berkely rod, 6lb Pline moss green test with a shimano fx1000 reel most of the time while I was bottom fishing. I enjoy the extra action and challenge from light tackle with the bigger fish. I have to give Shimano credit as that fx1000 has been my least expensive reel and but has held up really well. Love the sound of the drag on this reel too. I did finally end up with one nice 17 1/2 inch trout that seemed to think it was Steelhead doing a nice aerial dance topside a couple of times. It was great weather and many times the lake looked like a mirror it was so calm.

Get out there and take advantage of the nice fall weather we are about to experience. FYI lake level is low and the big rocks are all mostly exposed on both sides of the ramp. The side with the fence is best to launch and recover if there are no bank people fishing.

---