Three of us fished the Wallace Lake area (about 4 miles north of Gold Bar) yesterday, lugging forty pound packs full of float tube gear. We decided to press on to nearby Jay Lake which we had been told offered feisty brookies in a more intimate setting than the much larger Wallace Lake. Although the water temp at Jay Lake was 46 degrees with a fairly good chironomid hatch in progress, we saw only the occasional swirl with no outright rises. After a couple hours of trying nearly everything in the box, we ended up releasing just 7 small brookies between us on red Careys, Olive Willies, or red-butt Wooly Worms fished off sink tips and long leaders. Their takes were quite delicate and tentative, with just a slight tap-tap-tapping on a slow retrieve to signal their interest. We hiked back to Wallace Lake around 1pm, surprising an amorous couple who though they had the little beach at the inlet to themselves. After a somewhat embarrassed round of 'hellos', we split up and fished the inlet end and both sides. Like Jay Lake, there was very little surface activity even though the water temp was 48 degrees and the remains of a fair chironomid hatch. The southwest shore and inlet end yielded a couple more brookies and some small rainbows, but the steeper northeast side along the middle where a couple small creeks come in gave up 5 spunky rainbows to 14 inches and a couple of larger cutts. The best combination was still a three-foot sink tip between a floating line and a 10 or 12 foot 5x leader with a size 10 or 12 wet fly. After releasing one of the smaller rainbows, I noticed a small slurping rise under the overhanging branches near the second creek. Removing my sink tip, I switched to a size 16 Adams thinking it'd turn up a small cutt or rainbow. Ignoring my first 3 or 4 offerings, I was finally rewarded with a small delicate take that turned into a big pull. After a couple minutes, I finally released the fish of the day, a chunky 15 inch cutt holdover. Incidentially, the very deep Wallace Lake is apparently one of the few in the state with a native population of Lake Trout. When the area was first logged back in the early 1900s, the provisioning crews used to depend on it to put a fish dinner on the tables for the hungry loggers. Back before the access roads were closed in the 1990s, folks used to haul in small boats and troll hardware deep in hopes of hooking one of the monster Mackinaws. Kent Lufkin
