paulstp@gmail.com
Fished chain lake yesterday for a couple of hours and I was the only one on the lake. Fishing was on the slow side but I did get a two healthy holdovers to the net a 14 and 16 incher. Indicator fishing was a bust. I caught both fish stripping a black bugger. Picture is a 17 incher I caught March 31.
opitztj@gmail.com
Hi All,
Lake Alice was stocked again for the second time on Tuesday April 6th.
They are still schooled up around the boat launch and are running 8 – 12 inches.
Come and get em.
rodneybr@hotmail.com
I fished Lone Lake on 3/26/2022
Fished 1 to 7 PM
5 fish to net
4 stripping a black micro leech. Type 4 line, 3x leader. Casting and slow stripping. I caught my bigger fish away from the launch. The smaller planters are near the launch, and if you target them you should be able to get a handful.
1 fishing a blood worm about 1 ft off the bottom. This was about 100 yards away from the dock in about 15 ft water.
Fishing was slow, I missed about 4 good takes.
The lake will come alive in the near future, 2-3 weeks from now. It needs to warm up a bit more, I saw very very very few bugs coming off so the good times are ahead for chironomid fishing and some top water emerger fishing. A trip there in mid April should bring you some fishing joy. Keep watching the overnight temperature, if we get a solid week of a team above 50, we will be good for action.
george98034@hotmail.com
Lake Alice was fishing really well 3/17 and Bill Courshon & Francis Huynh reported good fishing last weekend. However, yesterday 3/23 I was warned by several boats before me that they hadn’t caught anything and they were right. It was very unusual to not even get a bump. I did see a few fish on the finder but targeting them didn’t help. Perhaps it was daphnia but I never caught one to find out.
rrolsen@msn.com
Chain continues to fish well with chironomids. Fished March 9 and 16. On 9th some fish deep, then mid depth, then deep again as the hatch changed. When they were rising, the 5 to 8′ level worked. On the 16th, fish were deep, in 18′ of water with ‘mids 1-3 feet off bottom. Mids were larger, so #12 worked, “bombers”. A few on blood worms on the bottom as well. Have fun!
opitztj@gmail.com
Yesterday around 1:00 PM (3/9/21) they dumped a load of fish into Lake Alice .
I do not have any details as to size or quantity.
It usually takes a day a day or two for the fish to get acclimated and figure out how and what to eat.
However I did see several rising right at dusk around the boat launch so I threw a dry for about 20 min. with no luck.
Come on up and see what you can do.
Good luck.
Tim Opitz
rrolsen@msn.com
Took advantage of a break in the winter weather to test the Snake. Only fisherperson there from 11 to 3. Air 41 degrees, water 39 degrees. Fish were active, and in pods. Vertical presentation and very slow strip worked. Blobs, and black leech. Most fish in the northwestern corner in 35′. Fish were uniform 13″, strong but a bit thin.
Cheers, Ron
rrolsen@msn.com
Testing out new PWM, pulse width modulator, for trolling motor. Beautiful day, no wind, sun, 44 degrees, water 40 degrees Burrr. This is what boats are made for. Did manage four takedowns on an indicator, blood worm at 15.5′ in 16′ of water. Fish 13″ to 17″.
If you’ve tubed up your trout rod for the winter, you might want to reconsider and head over to Beaver lake. On December 18th WDFW planted 900+ brood stock from the Issaquah hatchery. Make sure you bring a boat as shore fishing from the boat launch is pretty limited.
The OFFC received pictures of a fish kill at Lone Lake. After forwarding to the WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife we received a detailed answer… lack of dissolved oxygen but not due to temperatures.
I was able to investigate the fish kill at Lone Lake with WDFW’s Officer Downes and Zack Gaston from the Dept. of Ecology yesterday afternoon. We visually surveyed about 30% of the lake shoreline to determine species and approximate sizes that have died, measured water temperatures and dissolved oxygen concentration, and looked for signs of chemical contamination.
We only observed Rainbow Trout ranging from 12 to 18 inches long and estimate that more than 1,000 fish were visible along the shoreline, but did not seek to formally estimate the number of fish that have died.
Water temperature did not vary more than one degree and averaged 65˚F, which is below the lethal threshold for Rainbow Trout (77˚F). Dissolved oxygen declined from 1.8 at the surface to 0.6 mg/L at the bottom (average = 1.3 mg/L), which is well below the lethal level for Rainbows of 3 mg/L and the likely cause of the kill. Rainbows are pretty hardy and are capable of avoiding too much exposure to either lethal condition if they can find temporary refuge. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options for avoidance in small and shallow lakes like Lone.
We did not think that contaminants are a likely cause of the kill because only Rainbow Trout were observed. We also spoke with an angler who reported catching several Largemouth Bass in recent weeks, but no trout. The survival of one species, but not another corroborates our conclusion that the cause is most likely environmental.
There isn’t much else we can do at this point to determine the impact to the population, but wait and see how fishing is this fall and winter.
Please don’t hesitate to report observations of additional mortality and/or fishing success as that information is invaluable to WDFW’s efforts to maintain the fishery.
Thank you,
Justin Spinelli
Regional Fisheries Biologist