Rex s Fly Fishing Journal

Transcription

1 Rex s Fly Fishing Journal Dusty Lake Report 3/31/2016 Lots of Little Fish Dusty Lake is an amazingly spectacular place to fly fish, with vertical basalt cliffs almost surrounding the lake. On the hike down to the lake from the east side, this view from about halfway down is my favorite, looking west out over the Columbia River gorge. To give you an idea of the scale, there is a float tuber just off the near edge of the north peninsula and he just looks like a tiny dot in this photo. The serviceberry bushes are in full bloom right now (in the foreground). The brief version of this report is that I ve been unable to go fishing for the past four weeks, so I was really excited about finally being able to get out there for some fly fishing. I decided to try one of my old favorites, Dusty Lake, even though I d heard that it had mostly small fish this year, like last year. Dusty doesn t always produce the most or biggest fish, but the scenery more than makes up for those things. Last spring, Dusty seemed to have a lot of small fish, and this year it seemed to have even more small fish. I ended up with 138 solid hits, 110 of those fish on for a while, and landed & released 78 of those fish, mostly rainbows in the 10 to 17 inch range, with a brown trout and 2 Tiger trout in the mix. Several of the rainbows were dark spawners, and several looked quite beat-up and thin, but the others were very silvery and good fighters. My T- 1

2 Waterboatman was almost the only pattern I used. In terms of numbers I believe this may be the highest number of trout I ve landed in one day. (The detailed version of my fishing report that follows is for the real fanatics, basically my fishing journal notes shared in an message... a reminder that much of the detail is mainly for my own benefit to remind myself in future years of what worked and what didn't and what I want to try the next time. I m not an expert flyfisherman, but hopefully by keeping detailed journal notes, I may become an expert over time.) Dusty Lake is one of my favorite eastern Washington lakes. The scenery is awesome, similar to Dry Falls, but the water is clearer and deeper (up to 132 feet deep). The difficult hike into the lake deters 90% of the other fishermen, so it is usually not very crowded. Although there aren t many shoals, which results in not as many insects and hence not as many really fat trout, the Dusty trout are spunky fighters and occasionally you ll catch a big brown or Tiger trout. This was my 29 th outing to Dusty and I ve yet to be skunked at this lake (knock on wood), on average catching around 13 fish. Here s the only brown trout I caught on this outing, but it was the largest fish at 17 inches. It has been quite frustrating to not be able to go fly fishing these last four weeks, so I was pretty excited to finally be able to get out yesterday. I got up early (I told myself to wake up at 3:57 a.m. and I actually woke up at 3:58, as I didn t want my alarm to go off at 4:00 and wake up my wife) and I got out the door quicker than usual. At the Dusty Lake parking area, there was already one other fisherman parked there, and Mike Meils arrived after I had already started hiking down to the lake. The air temperature was already 51 F, with a high of 2

3 71 forecasted. There was a mild breeze from the west. Couldn t ask for a nicer day. The red dots indicate where I had solid hits (not all hits are shown so as to not overly clutter up the photo). Aerial photo from Google Maps. The other float tuber was fishing along the north peninsula, so I worked my way along the south shoreline, casting and stripping my T-Waterboatman pattern. Dusty is a colder lake than other desert basin lakes, so even though chironomids are now hatching at other lakes, I figured that the Dusty fish ought to still be keyed in on waterboatmen. I really started spotting a lot of fish and hooking a lot of fish once I got beyond the rock islands and before the fish planting point. I seemed to have the best success casting parallel to shore, letting the fly sink to about 8 to 12 feet deep and executing a moderate speed Fleeing Waterboatman Retrieve (3 strips of about 4 inches each, followed by a pause). I took a short lunch break at the west side launch and actually fished a Chuck Gold chironomid pattern about 8 under an indicator. I don t usually fish chironomids, except as a last resort, but I just let the rod fish itself while I eat and mess around and it surprises me a lot how often I ll catch fish with that unattended rod. I landed 3 fish and had another couple of take-downs, so it wasn t super productive, but not bad. There were a few chironomids hatching, but it still seems a bit early for good chironomid hatches at Dusty. Mike mainly fished chironomids, and landed about a quarter as many fish as I did. Mike prefers to watch a strike indicator over casting and stripping like I do. After lunch I continued fishing up the west shore and I think that was the best fishing spot, as there seemed to be lots of fish and they tended to fight better. 3

4 Mike reported catching a big brown trout up in the shallow northwest bay, so I headed up that way and caught two 15 inch Tigers and one 17 inch brown (shown in the previous photo). For some reason, the bigger browns and Tigers seem to like that spot. The water in that bay is always noticeably warmer than the rest of the lake. Here s photos of the Tigers: 4

5 All the measurements I take are with the Measure Net to reduce handling. The length is measured from the tip of the nose to the fork in the tail. Other details and statistics: Driving conditions: The snow up in the pass area is melting quickly, but it is still pretty up there. The road was bare and dry. The view of Stewart Range was spectacular from the Indian John Rest Area. No elk were spotted east of Ryegrass and the electronic signboards warning of elk on the highway are no longer in place, but just last week Tom Higashi reported seeing a big herd of elk there, so be on the watch. Air temperature range: 51 to 72 F; very pleasant for spring fishing. Sky conditions: Clear and sunny. Wind: Calm to light breezes from the west. Barometer: Steady (positive for lake fishing). Water temperature range: A nice 50 to 56 F (mostly 51 as measured on my Fishin Buddy). Water visibility: Great visibility of about 12 to 15 feet, very clear water for an eastern Washington lake. Water level: It appeared on the high side of normal for this time of the year. Moon phase: Exactly on the last quarter moon, lunar day 23 (positive for lake fishing). Other fishermen: One other float tuber, but neither Mike nor I spoke to him. There were also a few shore fishermen, a group of horse riders and some hikers. Insect hatches: There were some fairly large bugs flying around and I finally figured out that they were the largest waterboatmen I have ever seen. One hit the water by my float tube and swam towards me so I could get a good look and confirm that they were waterboatmen, so fishing waterboatmen patterns was probably a good idea. There were some #16 to 18 chironomids hatching, but not in enough numbers to get the fish rising. There were relatively few fish rising given how many fish there appeared to be in the lake. I also saw two callibaetis adults and a fair number of micro-midges. 5

6 Pesky insects: While packing up to hike back up the hill, the mosquitoes started to attack and got so bad that about halfway up I had to apply bug juice. The mosquitoes were really bad in the parking area and I probably had about 3 dozen hitch a ride home with me. Fish condition: Only four of the fish I landed were spawners and were very dark. The 15 inchers were very thin and beat-up. Otherwise, the fish were in good to great condition and about half appeared to have never been caught before. The fish fought decently and a few were jumpers. No spiny rays were spotted, but with this cold water they were probably still hibernating. Fly patterns tried & retrieve methods used: T-Waterboatman (138 hits moderate-speed Fleeing Waterboatman Retrieve) Chuck Gold s Chironomid #16 (3 hits, plus 2 TDs 8 under a strike indicator) Mike caught his brown on a brown leech, but caught most of his fish on chironomids. Fly line & leader: I used my RIO InTouch Deep 6 full sinking line for covering the deeper water, with a 6 leader down to a 3X RIO Fluoroflex Plus tippet. For the strike indicator fishing I used a floating line with a 10 leader, but set the strike indicator about 8 above the fly; I used a 5X RIO Fluoroflex Plus tippet. Wildlife sightings: The highlight wildlife sighting was hearing about a dozen Canyon Wrens singing their hearts out around the lake, so appropriate for this canyon-like setting. Their call is a very distinctive song, with a long series of descending notes. I also saw a Bald Eagle, Northern Harriers, Great Blue Herons, Red-wing Blackbirds, Violet-green Swallows, Cormorants, Canada Geese, Lesser Scaup, Crows, heard some Quail, Sandhill Cranes and Pheasants, and saw two turtles sunning themselves on a 6

7 rock. On the hike down I also saw a Marmot. On the drive I saw a Swan in Quincy Lake, 13 raptors, Great Blue Herons, Crows, Mallards, Magpies, Ravens, Blackbirds, Starlings, House Sparrows, Bald Eagle, Swallows, Mourning Doves, Robins, Whitecrowned Sparrows, Meadowlarks, Killdeer and Pigeons. Also saw 6 Deer at Elk Heights; you d think one would see Elk at Elk Heights, but rarely do I see Elk in that area. Wildflowers: The serviceberry bushes are in full bloom, and tiny, white fleabanes are blooming, along with a few buttercups. What would I do differently next time? I probably should have tried fishing some different fly patterns to see what else might work, but I figured nothing was going to work better on this day than my T-Waterboatman pattern, so I didn t change. But, the fish were so cooperative on this day that I think most any fly pattern would have worked fine. Tight lines, All in all, in spite of the mosquitoes, it was great to be back out fly fishing. Rex S. Takasugi RexTak@msn.com Copyright 2016 Subscription information: If this fishing report has been of value to you, please consider subscribing to support my effort to produce timely, detailed and informative fishing reports. I don t intend to become rich on subscriptions (and definitely won t quit my day job), but I just hope that the subscriptions will help fund things to make the reports better, whether better digital cameras, memory cards, photo editing software and so on. A one year subscription is US$50.00 (including Washington state sales tax) and should provide you with at least two dozen reports, and probably more. Subscriptions for more than one year may be made at the same rate of US$50.00 per year. Even though I go fishing about once a week on average, some of the lakes or rivers are secret and I may not send out such a report to my general fly fishing list. Reports are generally sent out within 48 hours of an outing. Delivery is via only in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Conditions change dramatically from day to day, so a reader s results may not match what is written in a report, but I make every effort to report honestly and without the normal fisherman s exaggerations. I am not a guide and am not beholden to any fly shops or sponsors. Subscription payment may be made via PayPal at RexTak@msn.com or via Visa, MasterCard or AMEX by calling me at my Technical Disciplines work number You may leave your credit card info on my voic if I am not available to pick up the phone (probably because I ve gone fishing). Please do not forward these reports to others. If reports are forwarded to nonsubscribers without my permission, subscriptions may be cancelled with no pro-rated refund. 7