Snake River, WA (Day 2)

This day would have pretty much the same story as the previous day except that I tried fishing The Pond, we got a much earlier start to Cat Fishing that did not pay off, I tried a bunch of different bait tricks that didn't pay off, and I caught a 9lb carp. See also Snake River (Day 1).

We went bait fishing again which was a lot of fun. Planned are day better and headed down to the water earlier to catfish. I decided this time to bring my bait pole and bait fish to pass the time. So casting a worm out there we waited while one of us cat fished. Dalton caught a catfish pretty early and then my bait pull bent down. We didn't know what to think. Did I hook a massive cat on a worm? As the fish got closer it wasn't a cat or a sucker. Seeing its size, knowing I had 4# test, and there was about 20' of 6" deep water covering 1' deep mud I played the fish as gently as I could until it got shallow enough I could hand Dalton the rod and run out there with a net. Pulling it on shore and putting it on the scale the fish came in between 8.75 and 9lbs. That was pretty cool. Cutting this fish up and looking at its bloody meat I winged it out for a try with no success. I used non coolered bait, bait soaked in elk blood, bait injected with garlic, plain bait, it didn't matter, by the end of the night I had caught no cats, Dalton landed on more, and Kevin getting fed up with the crowd on the boat came a shore to catch one cat. Catching that carp was a blast though.

Summary:
Location: Snake River, near Lyon's Ferry State Park WA (That's all I have been given permission to tell the public)
Time: 12-3pm (bait) 5pm-12am (Cat Fish)
Rod: 2-4# spinner with 6# test and 4# leader (bait), 8-12# spinner with 12# test and 10# leader (Cats)
Tackle: Bait - Worms, Cats - Whatever bait you caught
Fish: 15+
Species: Sucker, Bass, Peamouth, Pikeminnow, Channel Cat, Flathead Cat, Bull Head Cat, Carp
Biggest Fish: 9# Carp
Smallest Fish: 8" peamouth
Rating: 8/10

The Fight

The Carp

Palouse Falls

The Pond, Lyon's Ferry Marina, WA

There was this little pound next to the campground that supposedly had some trout in it. I was told with my float tube I could have some good access. So between bait fishing and cat fishing I blew up my tube and headed out. Cutting through a huge culvert you pop out at this pond. Knowing there was a bunch of weeds I paddled to the middle and tried to troll a woolly bugger and casey special. Didn't work, the lake was still too choked with underwater growth. Calling it a lost outing a paddle back in. As I reached the bank I got a bite and a fish. It was a baby blue gill.

Host said to wing a bobber with a worm as far in the middle as you could for best luck.

Summary:
Location: Pond, near Lyon's Ferry Marina, WA
Time: 3-4pm
Rod: 5wt floating line
Tackle: woolly bugger and casey special
Fish: 1
Species: Bluegill
Biggest Fish: 5"
Smallest Fish: N/A
Rating: 4.5/10

Snake River, WA (Day 1)

My buddy Dalton has a little brother that likes to come out fishing with us every once and a while. He gets frustrated sometimes at the amount of fish I catch compared to him. He extended and invite through Dalton for me to come Cat fishing with them this year, thinking there was no way I was going to out fish him at that. For total catfish I did take 3rd this weekend out of 5 guys.

How this whole operation works is we drove out to Lyon's Ferry Marina and Campground to set up base camp. After sleeping in and getting a good breakfast and maybe even lunch we go out fishing for bait. This is simple and consist of using ultra light spinners with a weight and a worm. Throwing this out in the river you wait for your pole to go wild while you kill a couple beers, throw rocks, and even watch a "wildfire". (It appeared some careless dummy through a cigarette out his window and started the grass on fire 200yds away from us. The bait fish we caught and used were suckers, peamouths, pike minnow, and carp.

Once we had a sufficient amount of bait and then some, we would fillet the fish into various sizes. Paul would say that he liked them the size of his pinkie while Dalton liked his pieces to be about 1.5" x 2". I used whatever piece looked best to me. After dinner we would take our baits and little heavier rods and go to another spot on the snake river. Dalton and I fished from the bank while Paul and Kevin (Dalton's brother) fished from a boat. Using probably a 1 size hook we would hook up are bait and toss it out into the river and wait. Dalton hooked the first 3 cats and I hooked the next three. I did use a little garlic scent on my bait that with the fish count probably did nothing. One thing we did notice is that the cats preferred the peamouth scraps over any other bait.

Part of the fun in cat fishing on the Snake is fishing at night. We would hook up glow sticks to the end of our rods, make a small fire, and then sit and wait.

I want to mention you can catch crappie in the Marina and I set out with a crappie jig and caught a bass my first cast before we ate breakfast. I took it as a good omen.

Summary:
Location: Snake River, near Lyon's Ferry State Park WA (That's all I have been given permission to tell the public)
Time: 12-3pm (bait) 8-12pm (Cat Fish)
Rod: 2-4# spinner with 6# test and 4# leader (bait), 8-12# spinner with 12# test and 10# leader (Cats)
Tackle: Bait - Worms, Cats - Whatever bait you caught
Fish: 15+
Species: Sucker, Bass, Peamouth, Pikeminnow, Channel Cat, Flathead Cat, Bull Head Cat
Biggest Fish: 4# Cat
Smallest Fish: 10" peamouth
Rating: 8.5/10

Sucker Fish

 The Fire

Channel Cat

Bass

Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, WA

So I had to work a whole bunch this week but that wasn't going to keep me from getting to a river. Better yet three buddies came along (Dalton, Sean, and Johnny) and we got a little fishing in. Dalton brought out his new waders and boots to give them a try and Sean read a book. Johnny and I managed to spend the night in a tent and get extra fishing in. The road was rough when I went up. It was all good until we got across the little creek bridge. Then it turned into a mine field of 2' potholes everywhere. Overall it was relatively cold but there was a good hatch of bugs on the water. The fish didn't seem as active as usual and the water was higher and colder with the snow runoff. I was able to get one fish to come to the surface on a brown elk hair caddis. Can't wait for the river to slow down and warm up a little.

Summary:
Location: Middle Fork Snoqualmie River, exit 34 off I-90, go North on 468th to Middle Fork Rd, follow road to river
Time: 5-8pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line and 5 wt w; sinking tip
Tackle: Stone Nymph, Emergers, Olive/Tan Elk Hair Caddis, Mosquito, Parachute Adams, and March Brown
Fish: 1
Species: Cutthroat Rainbow
Biggest Fish: 6"
Smallest Fish: 6"
Rating: 6.5/10

The bug hatching

The River

Little guy

F8 (Fate) Lake, WA

This lake actually has no name and I've been advised to keep its whereabouts under wraps. I thought of a figure eight when I was at this lake and thought of F8 and then if you use slang you get Fate (F-eight). The lake is formed by the holding of an irrigation channel. There was a series of four lakes or so, two of which we had access to without getting out of the water.

Anyways I was asked by Dalton on Monday if I wanted to join Paul (Mom's boyfriend) and Kevin (Dalton's brother) out at the lake over the weekend. Of course I said yes and after my dog locked our keys in the parking lot of QFC and a 3.5 hour drive later we ended up at a lake between Othello and Mesa, Washington. I was told before the trip that there were large mouth bass, crappie, and walleye in this lake. I know how to fish for bass and crappie but had no idea how to fish for walleye and figured we would be catching many anyways. Boy was I wrong, there were maybe 20 walleye caught, 1 bass, and 1 crappie. None by me. I lost a walleye early in the morning Saturday but that was the beginning and end of my luck for the weekend. I can make excuses, mostly blaming the fact our boat trolled way too fast on the slowest speed, but I really didn't care and know what I would do different next time. There were great cliffs to jump off, the water felt good, the sun was out, and the beer was cold.

Paul and Kevin (in the other boat trolling much slower) used mostly soft jigs and worms and had good success in the early morning and late evening. The crappie and a walleye was caught on a small black jig. If you ask me I will tell you where I went individually but not publicly over the web.

Next time, I would use a boat with an actual trolling motor, or get in my float tube and use my flippers for a good speed. I plan to go back and fly fish this lake much harder, being as all of Saturday I trolled a jig or cast a spinner. Sunday I did use a glass minnow with no success. The walleye were hanging on the bottom in 12' of water and the crappie came in late in the evening. There looked like good bass structure but I didn't see the only bass caught as it was before I got there.

Summary
Location: F8 (Fate) Lake, Connell, WA
Time: 6am-9pm Sat, 9am-11am Sunday
Rod: Ultra light spinner, 5 wt/sinking line.
Tackle: Spinners, soft baits, spoons, and glass minnow
Fish: 0(me) 20ish
Species: Walleye, Large Mouth Bass, Crappie
Biggest Fish: 23" (Walleye)
Smallest Fish: 12" (Crappie)
Rating: 8/10

 That in let was the hot-spot

 Looking north in the hot sun

The south side of the lake was 75' deep

Lake Rasmussen, WA

Went out in the morning to a friends plot on the Snoqualmie River to train my dog for bird hunting and by the afternoon I found myself fishing a Mud Lake. Well that is what Dalton calls it. This lake is very small, more of a pond, that has a maximum depth of 5 feet. I brought my spinner out with a weight and a worm, with some sill casting, landed two bass and lost two others. The boat totaled 8 small mouth bass. It was pretty fun with 4 guys and 2 dogs in a six man inflatable raft.

Summary
Location: Lake Rasmussen, Duvall, WA
Time: 2pm-5pm
Rod: Ultralight Spinner
Tackle: Worms and crankbait
Fish: 8
Species: Large Mouth Bass
Biggest Fish: 12"
Smallest Fish: 7"
Rating: 6.5/10

 That was the trophy of the day!

North Lake, WA

As I discussed in an earlier post there are plenty of lakes next to my house that I need to go fish and this was one of them. This lake receives a bunch of planters but after fishing this lake these fish fight nothing like a planted fish.
Typical experience for me, I showed up to the lake with Dalton, we put the raft in the water and headed out. There is a dock and some good bank access to fish from but life is always better in a boat. This was also an opportunity to get my dog trained to sit in the boat an behave. She did really well. Talking with a guy coming off the water he told us to go fish by the neck of the lake. Its shaped similar to a bowling pin. Sure enough the second we got into the neck and I actually started paddling instead of lazily drifting my rod got nailed. I have rarely had a planted fish strip line. I first I thought I was snagged. As I began to real my line in, Dalton's pole was hit hard too. We landed them both and did that one more time before calling it a day. We fished seriously for maybe an hour and caught four fish that fought well.I was fishing only flies and Dalton had a worm dropper. Both were equally successful, although I got hit first both times we doubled up.

Other notes about the lake - the North end is shallow, we could see weeds most the time. The head of the pin has lilies but we had no problems getting snagged through there. The hottest spot seamed through the neck and 100yds out either side. 

Summary
Location: North Lake, Federal Way, WA
Time: 2pm-6pm
Rod: 5 wt w/ floating line
Tackle: Wolly buggers (black, brown, and green) and the occasional worm dropper
Fish: 4 Species: Rainbow
Biggest Fish: 14"
Smallest Fish: 13"
Rating: 8.5/10

 Luna being good!

 On a black woolly bugger