Hi Mike, Great report heading over that way in a few days. Any word on Ell lake or do you think its just way to early?
Dan
----- Original Message -----Sent: 04/29/2001 8:22:12 AMSubject: Okanogan County report
Maybe the title of this report should be, "Man achieves flight while in float tube." Man, was it windy on both Sat and Sunday.Saturday morning I fished Aeneas Lake with my brother and his friend. I think fishing was pretty good but we got blown off the lake 3 different times in 6 hours. My niece did land a 20 inch rainbow which was the big fish of the day. I had a big one get off as the wind blew my boat back towards the fish and created slack in the line. An ongoing problem all day long. The rest of the fish caught ranged between 11-17 inches. Definetly not as good as the opener last year but the big fish may have been hugging the bottom as the barometer went crazy. List member Keith Bell said he noticed some large fish on his fish finder but nobody was hooking up with them. Buggers worked well.This morning I attempted Blue Lake. Once again wind came up just as I was getting settled in. I did manage to hook into one screamer that was in the 20 inch range. On his third run into my backing he threw the hook. Best fight I have had in quite some time. His first run was out 70 feet into the backing. I had one more strike but the fish didn't hook up. Only got a chance to talk to one gentleman and he said fishing was pretty good the day before. Olive was the hot color for buggers and nymphs.After getting blown off Blue Lake by 7:30 I headed over to a small hike in lake below Fish Lake. It is known as Shallow Pond and can have some outstanding fishing. It was out of the wind and the sun was on the water so I was ready for the hike. Not sure if the lake froze out last winter and wasn't restocked or if the fish were hugging the bottom but didn't see any rises and had not strikes.I finished off the morning at Fish Lake and landed a nice 16 incher just off shore from where I launched my boat. If you are looking for a fun place to camp with the kids that still has some good fly fishing, consider Fish Lake. Kids can dunk worms or powerbait from shore while you work the drop offs and weed beds from your tube.This was probably the worst opener I have had here at home in the last 5 years but it was also the worst weather in recent memory. I would hold off on your trips until you see a stretch of 3 or 4 days of warm weather and sun and then come on over. Only hatch was sporadic midges. No mayflys to speak of.I look forward to hearing from Keith upon his return. He is on a 10 day trip through out the area and will hit many of my favorite lakes. Hopefully he had better luck.Mike Wilson
--- Dan Reynolds
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