Interesting reading about how people feel about "secret lakes and waters". I have put together my own "database" of secret lakes over the years. Even went so far to review EIS statements, found water chemistry records for various lakes, and hiked to many lakes with fishing rod in hand to test fishing. Comments are for lowland lakes in eastern and central Washington since that's the only waters I really fish. That's how I've managed to fish with only two flies for the past 20 years.
I'd categorize lakes as follows: Class 1.......never saw a fisherman fishing either weekends or weekdays. Class 2.......never saw a fisherman on weekdays, some fisherman present weekends. Class 3.......regionally known as good fishing water, in eastern Washington waters fishermen from the coast are rare. Generally somebody fishes during the week, heavy fishing pressure on weekends. Class 4.......state-known waters. Both fishermen from the coast and eastern Washington present most days. Crowded on weekends. Class 5.......state-known waters. Crowded both weekdays and weekends. Fishing reports constantly posted on the net. Yakima River, Rocky Ford, Lenice, Dry Falls, Chopaka, etc. Class 1 and 2 waters are always general limit lakes. Class 3 lakes almost by definition have hit the regulations as restrictive fisheries. For Class 1 and 2 waters to provide good fishing these lakes can NOT be fished by the catch and kill fisherman. I spent the entire summer of 1972 on Kelly Creek in Idaho. That was the first summer of catch and release regulations. The water had very few fish, and Kelly Creek was a 50 mile drive on dirt to the fishing water!!! Likewise in the late 70's I spent a lot of time on the St. Joe in Idaho. Limit was 2 fish over 13 inches. I caught fish after fish that were 12 and 1/2 inches long. I really don't have a problem eating fish, but for most waters in colder part of the world...the fish do not grow fast enough to overcome the kill numbers. The best fishing on a consistent basis is almost always on selective fishery waters. These have restrictive regulations which allow fish to grow. There is still some kill on selective fishery waters. I also think this is why at least in eastern Washington, so many locals resent anglers from the coast. Generally, when waters become state known the quality goes down, and rather than blaming the number of anglers, the locals tend to blame the anglers from somewhere else. With almost a million and a half people now living east of the Cascades and the incredible increase in fishing pressure over the past 15 years on selective fisheries waters I suspect that even local lakes will go down in fishing quality. Now in all the time I spent in scouting Class 1 and 2 lakes I have hit the jackpot several times. Once I called the local Fish Biologist and got the lake made into a selective fishery. And lately a favorite lake went from a Class 1 to a Class 3.5 when it was made a selective fishery. The coast fishermen showed up last year and its been mentioned once or twice on the Internet. Unfortunately, its not big enough to take pressure so I guess its time to put the walking shoes on again. The big jackpot was a Class 1 lake that was never hit hard by catch and kill fishermen. Unfortunately, the state thought their plant a failure and never restocked the lake. But in year 3, all the fish were five pounds. I have a collection of flies that were bent, straightened, and abused by those fish. That entire spring I must have fished that lake 15 times and never saw another person, but each time I saw the same set of tire tracks. The fish population kept going down and down. The last time I fished it I caught six fish, none by trolling all by casting to working fish. That was the end of that fishery. Its hard to keep a fishery going when your catching and releasing and the other guy is catching and killing!! I enjoy looking for those secret lakes, but the best fishing in Washington and Idaho really isn't in the little known waters at least for lowland lakes. Now Alpine Lakes are a different story, but I don't fish those seriously. Vladimir
