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Silverton would be pretty cool, but I actually live in Silverdale, north of Bremerton.
Silverdale was originally named Goldendale, but they discovered there was already a Goldendale in the state so they went with Silverdale instead. I think that beginning must still be setting the tone around here…
Well, the public EIS meetings are over. There were four meetings and a grand total of one person who was not a Trail Blazer or Hi-Laker testified and he was in favor of alternative A (continue current stocking).
That’s a fairly loaded question. My number one criteria would be fantastic scenery. But if you are strictly talking about fishing that changes and the answer isn’t perfectly simple. The general rule of thumb is that the more food in the lake the larger the fish. That rule is complicated by stocking cycles (how old are the fish?) and fishing pressure (are they all caught out before they get big?) and mortality rates (how long do they live?).
The primary food sources for fish live in water less than 10 feet deep. Productivity is highest in the zone where light penetrates. Light supports plant life and plant life supports animal life. So shallow lakes are more productive then deep lakes. But what animals live in the lake can have a profound effect and that is sometimes determined by water chemistry. The lakes that grow the largest fish generally have fresh water shrimp, aka scuds, aka gammarus. In general, Rocky Mtn high lakes are much more likely to have shrimp then our lakes, but if you can find a shrimp lake you will find big fish if the lake isn’t full of stunted fish. Shrimp and insects like plants so submerged vegetation is a good sign of a productive lake.
So lets put this together. The best odds of finding your dream lake will be a shallow (productive) lake, that isn’t fished heavily (off trail, far back, not often visited), that you happen to visit at just the right year so the lake has big fish. Of course there are exceptions. A large deep, clear (unproductive) lake might have big fish if they’ve been there long enough.
I like to just go explore places I haven’t been. If I find fantastic fishing I figure that’s a bonus. If the fishing is lousy I’ve still had a great trip in the mountains. So I don’t think there is really such a thing as a lousy high lake.
The weather can make a huge difference. In the middle of the day on a hot day the fish will often go deep and you won’t see them at all. I’ve been to lakes where the water is riddled with rises and the fish are biting all over, but as soon as the sun hits the water the entire lake goes dead and you’d swear there wasn’t a fish in it.
Last time I was at Snoqualmie I fished for about an hour and a half and caught 3 from 10″ to 11.75″. But I’ve heard from other people who had slower fishing.
I’ve been by Deer and Bear a couple times, but I’ve never fished ’em. The first time they were mostly frozen and the second time I just walked by. Dorothy seems to turn off and on. The one time I fished it (about 25 years ago) I had lousy fishing, but I’ve heard that the fishing can really turn on if you’re there on the right day. I’ve never fished the Miller.
When you’re looking for high lakes to fish, don’t forget the smaller lakes. The big ones often aren’t the best.
The Crow Creek drainage is in the north end of Yakima County. It is north of Bumping Lake and south of Naches Pass.
McPil, do you still have the pics of the wolf tracks? Did they come out? That’s totally cool.
Oldtimer, when I was up on Ragged Ridge, by your favorite spot, we flushed out a black bear. So you can go all the way up to 100% sure about black bears being there.
Westslope cutthroat are stocked in lakes on the east side of the mountains and coastal cutts are stocked in lakes on the west side (their native drainages). The only west side exceptions are Skamania and most of Lewis counties where the cutthroat being stocked are westslope.
The eggs for the westslope cutts are taken from Twin Lakes near Lake Wenatchee. These fish are well adapted to mountain lakes, and that can be a problem. If there is any spawning habitat available at all they’ll take advantage of it. Consequently, we have lots and lots of lakes on the west side of the crest that are full of westslope cutts. Mostly too full.
If you want to catch westslope cutts, high lakes are a great place to do it.
Bear and Pinnacle are very popular lakes and as such aren’t the place you are likely to find super hot fishing. Bear is almost right on the road so it gets fished extra hard. That being said, the hike up to Pinnacle is worth it, and you should be able to catch some fish. Contrasting Diamond and Pinnacle will give you a taste of how varied high lakes can be.
Here’s the link to the High Lakes Primer Bob referred to.
@Anonymous wrote:
I’ve heard some rumors about Tiger Muskie possible being planted into some high lakes to help control the brookie population.
This has gone from rumor to reality. Here’s a great newspaper article about this exciting project.
Here’s the link to the growth report.
I just bought a spool of 4 lb FireLine the other day. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.
If fish are rising I’d try starting with a dry fly. Vary the retrieve. I like to “pop” the bubble to give the fly some action. If that isn’t working I’ll try a steady, slow retrieve. Sometimes they don’t like any action.
I know some people swear by those blue/silver kastmasters so I’m sure I’ll get people who disagree with me chiming in, but in my experience blue/silver is not an effective color combo for high lake fishing. I’ve had good luck with blue/silver spoons in low lakes, but not high lakes. I much prefer red/brass or orange/brass. Try an orange/brass or red/white/brass Kamlooper Jr (3/16 oz) or a red/brass Krocodile. My favorite all around lure is the brass Jakes Spin-a-lure.
Some days the fish just aren’t hitting lures. You can carry a fly and bubble set up for those days.
The water in high lakes tends to be very clear so be sure you are using light line. I use 4 lb test line for spin fishing and go to a 2 lb leader for flies.
@giantbrookie wrote:
1. Depending on the area (and I’m not at all familiar with NC lakes) spawning potential (even excluding that for brookies and other chars) has proven to be better than thought in many lakes. Many lakes that folks 20 years ago thought did not support significant spawning have turned out to be self sustaining (the lakes in the CA NPs provide a good guide here). Thus, the percentage of lakes that fit the criteria of being manageable by stocking only may be well less than half the available lakes in some regions. Of course if the stocked fish are sterile, this is not an issue, provided one is starting with fishless lakes.
The key is to use sterile fish. Or fish that have some issue that them poorly adapted for spawning in high lakes. I think the long term plan here in WA is to go to all sterile fish. In the mean time we are using Mount Whitney RB as our rainbow stock. It is a hatchery stock we got from CA in the early sixties and we haven’t been able to document a case yet where they are successfully spawning in high lakes. Where ever we have spawning RB they appear to have come from Kamloops stocks. The MWRB doesn’t seem to be a very long lived fish so we’d like to replace it, but we need a sterile stock before we can consider that. For CT we are using Twin Lakes CT which is a westslope CT that is extremely well adapted to high lakes and prone to overpopulating if it can see a piece of gravel on the hillside. They are only stocked where they have a track record of not reproducing. Westslope cutts are native to the east side of the Cascades so a strain of coastal CT called Tokul Creek cutthroat are used on the west side. They will spawn if gravel is available so, again, are limited to lakes with a history of successful CT stocking. EB are only used if they are sterile. We’re using Cottonwood Lakes goldens. Eggs are obtained from CA every year. Goldens have only established spawning populations in two lakes in the state so haven’t been a major problem.
Once we are using sterile fish the next step will be to eliminate or control naturally reproducing populations.
@giantbrookie wrote:
2. As a veteran high lake angler I target “premium” (big fish, low density) lakes and would benefit from a program that manages exclusively low density fisheries, but I believe the vast majority of folks who like fishing simply want to catch something. The average angler usually ends up getting frustrated at home run type lakes. If the majority of lakes in a given region are managed as low density lakes, isn’t this a rather elitist approach in terms of serving a very small percentage of high lake anglers–ie the very experienced ones such as those of us here? Perhaps this question stems from my lack of understanding of the big picture of what lakes will be left alone as self sustaining (if any) versus those that are proposed to be managed by stocking.
This is a fabulous question. You would probably enjoy reading this WDFW paper. It goes into great detail discussing how management decisions are made on high lakes here in WA and I think most of the concepts should apply to CA. This very point is raised. This has been an easy decision in past years because you could manage all stocked waters for blue ribbon fish and have plenty of stunted waters for quantity. But now we understand that stunted lakes are a bad situation ecologically and the question of quantity vs quality will have to be addressed on a lake by lake basis as we eliminate those stunted populations.
The NCNP has updated their EIS page. As of this writing the changes appear to be partially in place and the link to the actual EIS isn’t up yet. But they have posted the schedule for the public meetings. I’ll post that at the top of a new thread so it doesn’t get buried in the thread.
