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I supposed that depends on what you mean by hard. There is road and good trail all the way so by that measure it is easy. But with the road out it is probably a 7 or 8 mile hike each way so it does have a lot of distance to cover.
Boardman and the ones around are good lakes to visit. Boardman itself is generally tough fishing, but you ought to be able to find some fish if you explore around. The close, easy lakes generally don’t have great fishing (exceptions can be found, of course) so it pays to work at it. But if you are just getting started then any of the lakes off the Mountain Loop Highway would be great places to start. The thing to remember is that you don’t have to key on large lakes and you don’t have to worry about lakes not having fish. They will.
Goat Lake is beautiful. The road is washed out about 3 miles back so it isn’t getting quite as much pressure this year as it normally does. It does have brush around the shore and is easiest fished from a boat. There used to be a large hotel at the outlet and mine buildings on the cliffs behind the lake. The mines on the cliff would have been amazing to see when they were still standing. They built them to be shaped like ski jumps so the snow would slide over the top. Amazing. There is also an old townsite on the other side of the river from the trail.
Lots of fish in the lake, none large though. You’ll have a great time.
More extensive surveys are always better. Be sure to incorporate that extra info into the comments in your online version.
Here’s a link to the pdf version of the survey form that matches the online form. We developed it in conjunction with the WDFW and have been using it for many years. It was based on the original high lake report card they used to use starting back in the sixties.
If you submit surveys online then you can access all the surveys you’ve submitted. It makes a great diary of all your trips.
http://www.watrailblazers.org/survey/HL%20Fishing%20Report_V4.4.pdf
[edit]Sorry about the copy paste link. I’m not sure why the bbcode isn’t working here.
That’s a really good question and I wish I had a good answer. There should be fish, they have been stocked. We are trying to get surveys from the Park Lakes this year to evaluate survival. The lower lake is an especially tough one. It looks great, but avalanches have deposited a ton of logs in the lake and there are a lot of bubbles from the organic materials decaying. Theoretically, that could cause a dissolved oxygen shortage and prevent fish from surviving the winter. We really need surveys from those lakes to find out how well the fish have made it.
That’s a tough one because it really depends on what the fish are feeding on that day. The Ramparts are fairly high lakes with cutthroat so my inclination would be to go with something that has some red. A red and white Daredevil or Kamlooper Jr would be good choices. Or a Krocodile or Kastmaster. Preferably brass. If the fish are rising I’d switch to a fly and bubble.
I should be clear that the GPS does not replace a paper topo map in any way. Instead, it supplements the map and adds another navigation aid. And I always leave it on to trace my route and later overlay the track on a topo map so I have an exact record. I find it to be a lot of fun.
We had several good sized lakes that were completely left off the 15 minute series here in WA. They were truly secret for a while. But they all appear on the new 7.5 minute maps.
I was never in the map and compass camp. I’ve always been a map and altimeter guy. I used to say that GPSrs weren’t where they needed to be but then one day someone pointed out that they finally were where they needed to be. I bought a 60cs and I’ve never looked back. I also use the Topo! software. I don’t tend to upload routes, though. I might put in some waypoints, but that’s about it. I’m now a confirmed map and GPSr guy. I love being able to save exactly where I’ve been hiking.
One other fun tool I use is GPS Photo Linker. It is a fabulous app that takes the time stamp on photos and compares them with time stamps on the save GPS track and puts the lat and long into the photo header. So all my photos can be geolocated.
I’ve never even heard of at Thunder Bug. Do you like the brass or silver blade? With the plain or dressed hook? 1/4 oz?
As far as spoons go, so far we’ve all listed brass and red as our first choice of color. It probably isn’t coincidence that we’ve we’ve settled on that color combo as our first choice. Shawn’s spinners are more split between brass and silver (depending on what color blade the red Rooster Tail has. Black has a silver blade and brown has brass).
I’ll be trying out some of the other lures people have listed here.
Great topic. It is interesting that my list will be far different. I’m going to have to separate fly and lure fishing. Conditions and circumstances dictate which I use so I’ll cop out and separate them.
Lures:
1. Wyoming Whoopie. More properly known as Jakes-Spin-A-Lure. Brass is best followed by black and white. I rarely use silver. These spoons cast a mile and have erratic darting action that is very effective. I’ve seen lakes where it didn’t matter what color lure you used, but the Whoopies were effective while other lures couldn’t catch a thing.2. Flatfish. Orange, red, or black are my favorites. These are my preferred lures for trolling.
3. Kamlooper Jr. Brass and orange or red and white. These 3/16 oz spoons are good casters and have a lot of action when retrieved slowly. My preferred spoon for shallow situations.
4. Krocodile. Brass with a red stripe is my favorite, but lots of others are very effective. My favorite lure for fishing very deep.
5. Rooster Tail. Black. I rarely use Rooster Tails because they are fussy to fish and don’t cast well. The blade has to be started with a jerk of the rod tip and they are severe line twisters even with a snap swivel. But when fish are keying on black ants and I can’t fish flies they can be extremely effective when nothing else will work. So they mostly sit unused, but sometimes they are needed.
Flies
1. Elk Hair Caddis. Easy to tie, floats well, visible and effective.
2. Adams. A good general fly.
3. Carey Special. Sometimes you can puff them to drive fish crazy.
4. Hopper. Fish don’t seem to hit anything quite so hard as a hopper.
5. Black ant. Similar to the Rooster Tail, I don’t fish this fly often, but when they’re keying on ants they often leave everything else alone.
Are you limited to doing your project during the school year? Most of the hiking season occurs during summer break so it makes mountain research problematic.
The snow pack is making things tough this year. It’ll really depend on where the lakes you are heading to are, and what their exposure is. I expect some lakes at those elevations to be open, but others to still be frozen. One of the best places to get a feel for the snow pack is the fresh reports page on the WTA website.
The debris probably came from snow slides during the winter. That is very common. I don’t know how deep Barclay is.
