A friend and I drove east early Saturday morning to visit a trio of
lakes we'd heard about but never fished.
First stop on our tour was Beda Lake, located in the Winchester
Wasteway west of Potholes reservoir. With a labyrinth of small bays
surrounded by cattails and red-winged blackbirds, the crystal-clear
waters looked every bit the secret gem the guys in my local fly shop
had recommended (lurkers on this list, you know who you are!)
Trouble was, during the 2-3 hours we fished it hard, we never so much
as saw a rise or any other sign of fish, let alone had a hit or
hookup. (I see this morning on the WDFW site that Beda is scheduled
for a dose of 1,000 8-12 inch browns sometime this month or next.)
So by noon it was on to the next stop, Homestead Lake, north of Moses
Lake. As we drove through town, the water in Moses Lake was so low
that it looked as if the tide was out with mud flats and gravel bars
showing all along the shore.
The handmade sign on the fencepost near the parking lot said it all:
'Homestead Lake - no bait, single barbless hooks only, 1 fish/day
limit.'
Eagerly anticipating the two-foot sized trout I'd heard about, we
found the lake to be in the midst of turning over - dark green-brown
47-degree water offering less than a couple feet visibility and
plenty of floating crud. Judging from the marks on the rocks and
reeds, the water level seemed to be down 15-18 inches.
As we were putting in, we saw a couple guys on mountain bikes coming
out who said they'd taken two large rainbows on San Juan worms. We
fished along the bluffs on both sides and had a couple modest hits on
bright streamers, but no action other than that as we kicked north
towards the inlet. Even our neon red San Juan worms failed to
connect, although I did see one dead 16" rainbow floating in the
water.
On the way back, I finally hooked a foot-long brown near a shallow
area in mid-lake. Took another on the next cast about the same size.
During the next hour or so, we released about 40 or so and lost about
the same number. Except for one my partner took on a dry, nearly all
fell for a small purple egg-sucking leech stripped moderately fast.
All were browns, and most were about 10-11 inches. (The WDFW site
confirms that Homestead got a shot of 2,000 browns in March, so we
must've found 'em.)
We spent the night in Moses Lake and drove south the next morning in
a steady rain to Othello where we turned west to follow Crab Creek
toward the Columbia. The parking lot at Lenice had about 25 vehicles
in it including an assortment of campers, trailers and tents. But our
last tour stop was Nunnally Lake, where we found a half dozen
vehicles and an end to the rain when we arrived at 7:30am.
I had expected a much longer walk in to a much smaller lake and so
was surprised by how much larger than Lenice it is. There was
absolutely no wind so the surface dimpled with the rings of surfacing
fish - large fish, too! Water temp was right at 48 degrees and the
marks along the shore told the now-familiar tale of a 15-18 inch drop
in water level.
After kicking to the far side with no action on trolled streamers, I
switched to a #18 chironomid under an indicator. I had not enjoyed
any previous success fishing that way, which I regarded as a sort of
poor and distant relation of the type of flyfishing I prefer. But the
big pull I got after seeing the indicator go down for the first time
went a long ways toward helping me to become a convert.
A substantial fish was peeling off line from my 4wt as it pirouetted
and danced around my tube before finally coming to net where it
measured the full length of the 18 inch ruler on my stripping apron.
Two casts later, I practiced long distance catch and release after
introducing Mr. Chironomid to a second big rainbow.
Ironically, a brief rain squall mid-morning forced me to pause
between casts to don my parka. As I was buttoning up, I happened to
look over at my indicator which had been floating next to my tube
just in time to see it disappear underwater. I quickly set the hook
and started dancing with a third fat trout which measured over 16
inches a few minutes later.
A huge fish violently hooked up in the shallows along the reeds
finally separated one of my leader knots, cleaning me out. That was
the last fish of the day for me and by then there were about a dozen
tubes visible in the lake, fishing the bluffs along the north side.
From what I could see and hear nearly everybody was catching fish,
almost exclusively on chironomids or blood worms. A couple guys
boasted of catching fish over 20 inches long.
We finally packed up and headed for home about 1pm. I spent the drive
back rethinking the practice of using such small flies to catch such
large fish. All in all, a good tour to at least a couple lakes I'll
look forward to visiting again.
Kent Lufkin
