Two thousand miles later, I know largemouth are biting at Lake Seminole and smallmouth are biting at Lake Erie!
On a Thursday in Novmeber, 2016 I made the 200 mile trip to Wingates Lunker Lodge to meet Clint and Bowynn Brown to get information for the Georgia and Alabama Outdoor News December issues. Clint and his son Bowynn live across the street from Wingates and Clint guides on the lake. Both fish tournaments there. Bowynn is a member of the Bainbridge Bass Cats High and Middle schools fishing teams.
When I got there that afternoon they had been out fishing and had about ten bass in the live well. When they started pulling them out for pictures each held two up. Those four went from almost six pounds to about five pounds. And there was another five pounder still in the live well!
We went out for a few hours looking at the ten spots to put on the map and talked about how to fish them. Then I made the 200 mile return trip to Griffin, getting home about 11:00 PM.
On Saturday Bowynn won his school tournament with three bass weighing seven pounds and Clint won a tournament with five weighing 18 pounds. Bass are feeding heavily at Seminole and it would be a great trip anytime until the water gets real cold around Christmas.
Friday I left my house at 11:00 AM headed north. I thought leaving at that time would get me through Atlanta when traffic was not too bad. WRONG. The traffic warning sign near I-20 on I-75 said there was a wreck at 17th street and all lanes were blocked.
I started to try to go around it on surface streets downtown but I don’t really know my way around and was afraid I would get lost. Sure enough I came to a stop near 10th Street. It took me 30 minutes to get past the wreck on 17th Street. And apparently it had caused other wrecks, the police were working four wrecks between 14th and 17th Streets!
The rest of the 400 mile drive to near Lexington, KY was uneventful and I spent the night at a Red Roof Inn. The next morning I drove to Lake Erie just south of Detroit, another 400 miles, and spent the night. I was within a mile of I-75, I took it all the way.
Sunday morning when I got up just before daylight the windshield on my van was iced over. Not frost, solid ice. The air was at 36 degrees according to my phone weather report. At 9:00 I met Bass Elite Pro Chad Pipkins and got my Cabella’s Guidewear, my heaviest winter suit, on.
Chad said it was a nice day even if cold, and the wind was not bad. We put in at the boat ramp in a cove and rounded the point, and I said “I don’t think I’m in Georgia anymore.” There was nothing ahead of us but water as far as I could see.
The waves seemed pretty big to me but Chad said it was not a bad day. We stopped on a rock pile in 15 feet of water and he got on the front of the boat. Every tenth wave or so broke over the front of the boat, soaking his feet and putting several gallons of water in the boat.
He said on a bad day every wave would do that!
We fished for about an hour and each of us caught a smallmouth on drop shot rigs. We then went back into the ramp cove and he showed me all the bells and whistles on the boat. Pros at that level have an amazing array of extras on their boats. This one had four top end Hummingbird depthfinders on it!
We took the boat our and I headed home. The boat followed me! I hope Linda will let me keep it and give it a good home!
I called and made reservations at the same motel in Kentucky where I had stayed two nights before. When I got to Cincinnati I came to a stop about two miles from where I-75 splits and goes over the river. Nobody was going the other way into town. Four miles and 90 minutes later traffic sped up to about 50 miles per hour and thinned. I never saw a wreck or any other reason for the traffic jam.
Pulling a new boat through all that mess worried me a little but everything went fine until I came into Atlanta. As usual traffic was jammed up where I-75 and I-85 join, even at 1:00 on a Monday afternoon. One lane would stop while the one next to it moved, then that lane would stop while the other one moved.
Even though the boat trailer has surge brakes I tried to leave several car lengths ahead of me, you do not stop immediately when pulling a boat. At one point the lane to my left was stopped and I was moving at about 20 miles an hour. Some crazy woman in a tiny red car decided to pull into my lane just about the time my front bumper was even with her back bumper. I managed to slam on brakes and miss her. If I had hit her with my big van it would have crushed her little car.
She went about 50 feet to where the lane we were in was stopped, then jumped back into the left lane between two cars as it started to move, almost hitting them, too. I saw her change lanes like that four more times in the next half mile or so. She was about ten car lengths ahead of where she was when she first pulled out in front of me.
Strangely enough, the most expensive gas on the whole trip was right here in Griffin, Georgia! I wonder why. Long trip, 400 miles each of five days in a row, 800 of them pulling a boat, and I am glad to be home!
Frabill pro Dale Stroschein’s system of hooking, fighting and landing trophy walleyes and deep whitefish starts with the proper ice rods
from The Fishing Wire
Plano, IL – Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Famer, Dale Stroschein, is an analytical guy; he has to be. Through his Wacky Walleye Guide Service, Stroschein leads hundreds of ice anglers each year to thousands of walleyes and whitefish, perfecting basic principles through unending trial and error.
He calls it completing the process: the act of getting fish to strike, fighting them and ultimately leading them safely through the hole. This last step is where Stroschein often sees inexperienced anglers struggle, especially where large fish are involved.
“In open water fishing, we have the greatest device ever created to complete the process – the Frabill landing net,” says Stroschein, who has the big fish gene in his DNA.
While competing on the nation’s largest walleye circuits throughout the 1980’s, Stroschein earned a title no angler has ever duplicated; Big Fish Awards for the largest walleyes caught during competition on both the PWT and MWC tours. Indeed, Frabill landing nets helped Stroschein complete the process on both monster fish. “But, on ice, we don’t have that luxury,” he points out.
Following such open-water accolades, Stroschein took hold of yet another title – one of the walleye world’s greatest – when he landed the all-tackle ice fishing world record, a behemoth weighing thirteen and three-quarter pounds. The fish was brought to hand using the big fish techniques perfected over years of guiding clients on and around his home water of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Thankfully, this system is easily duplicated, and starts with the proper ice rod.
As a lead pro and designer on the Frabill ice team, Stroschein has developed a duo of rods perfectly suited to hooking, fighting and landing the giant walleyes and whitefish he and his clients pursue.
The core walleye stick in Stroschein’s arsenal is a 27″ medium action that fishes comfortably within an ice shelter. “You have to put forth an effort to become a good ice angler,” says Stroschein, who points to mobility as one of the most important elements to consistent success in tracking down and catching roaming schools of walleyes. “Today, you really have to go to the fish with a mobile shelter to be successful every day, and a shorter rod is more practical for fishing in a shelter.” Through countless hours of testing within the confines of one-man shanties, Stroschein settled on the 27″ length of his namesake Frabill Ice Hunter walleye rod to allow anglers to fully set the hook without contacting the shelter’s roof.
Even with the advent of superlines in ice fishing, Stroschein continues to rely on monofilament for the bulk of his walleye fishing, as the line simply generates more bites and better hook-ups. “The biggest thing is that you make a very aggressive hook set with a firm rod,” he adds. “Mono holds up to that initial stress very well, and plays well with the shorter, medium-power rod to get big fish up through the hole.”
The rules change when Stroschein turns to chasing whitefish, often in depths approaching 90 feet. Here, the experienced pro moves to Berkley Fireline with a fluorocarbon leader to presents tiny jigs with live bait trailers. Of course, the analytical Stroschein has worked with Frabill to design the ideal rod for this scenario, too.
“The 30″ Ice Hunter whitefish rod has a positive locking reel seat, which is important, but the biggest attribute to completing the system is the rod’s tip,” he says.
In order to detect light bites in deep water, Stroschein demanded a rod with a bright, blaze-orange coloration at its highly sensitive tip. “It’s like a spring bobber without the headaches,” he says. “A live bait angler can detect subtle bites on a pause in the jigging stroke.”
The medium-light power allows for smooth hook sets on delicate fish, but delivers enough backbone to drive the hook home in deep water when using superlines. And the rod’s sensitivity is unparalleled; it has to be. “Whitefish are one of the most difficult fish, ever, to catch,” Stroschein confirms. “The bite is nothing more than a slight change in pressure.”
On average, Stroschein’s Wacky Walleye guide service outfits a minimum of 25 anglers per day, every day of the ice fishing season around Door County, Wisconsin. All clients are outfitted with Frabill rods, enabling each to complete the system Dale Stroschein has worked over 30 years to develop: present, hook, fight, land, repeat.
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
In 1974 I bought my first bass boat. It was a brand new 16-foot Arrowglass with a 70 hp Evinrude outboard on one end and a Motor Guide 12 volt trolling motor at the other. It also had one Lowrance depthfinder, a flasher. The trailer for it had two 12 inch tires and the boat would run about 35 mph at full throttle.
I looked at all the bass boats at the Atlanta Boat Show that January and liked the Arrowglass the best by far. It had raised casting decks front and back, a rod locker that would hold five rods and a livewell that kinda worked, if you poured water into it all day. It was one of the most modern bass boats on the market and when I joined the Spalding County Sportsman Club that March I had the boat with the second-highest horsepower in the whole club.
That boat had a 12 gallon built in gas tank and you had to pour oil into the gas and mix it before running the motor. There were padded seats with arms on pedestals on the front and back decks, and two comfortable riding seats were on either side. I added a kill switch, a simple pull cord that turned off the motor if the driver left the seat.
Eight bass boats and 42 years later, I am thinking about buying another boat. I currently fish out of a 2004 20 foot long Skeeter with a 225 horsepower Yamaha outboard motor on one end and a 24-volt Motor Guide trolling motor on the other. It has a Lowrance HDS 10 on the console and a HDS 8 upfront. Both show details on color screens that look almost like a photo of what is under the boat, and the built in GPS shows me details of a lake and how to navigate. It sits on a dual axel trailer with four car size tires.
I have had this boat running 74 mph but never run it that fast unless I have to. It has two built in gas tanks that hold 25 gallons of gas each, and a two gallon oil tank. The oil and gas are automatically mixed as you run the boat. Two thirty gallon live wells have pump to fill from the lake and other pumps to recirculate the water to keep bas healthy and lively. Two rod lockers will hold 16 rods – each. It, like all bass boats now, has a built in kill switch and you can not crank the motor if it is not attached.
I paid $3500 for the Arrowglass outfit. Thirty years later the Skeeter was $30,800 – without the electronics. Those two Lowrance units on the Skeeter alone cost more than the Arrowglass outfit! I just priced a used 2016 Skeeter that a pro fisherman is selling – for $52,900. List price on that outfit the way it is rigged would be around $76,000!
Do I catch more bass with a more expensive boat? NO. I can go a lot faster between fishing holes, or when running from a thunderstorm, and the ride is much better in rough water. And I can see what is under the boat in detail and never have to worry about getting lost on a lake. And I fish in much more comfort. But I definitely do not catch more bass.
The new boat I am looking at is a 20 foot Skeeter with a 250 horse power motor. It has a four stroke motor, just like in cars, eleminating the need to mix oil with gas. It has four depthfinder/gps combination units that sell for about $3000 each! You can see everything under the water and one of the features shows you a 360 degree view of everything around the boat.
Most folks think it is crazy to spend that much on a fishing boat, and I agree. But I spend at least 24 hours a month in my boat and having more comfort at my age is definitely important. Some buy expensive cars. Nice boats make me happy and it is what I worked and saved for all my life.
NEW 2022 GEORGIA FISHING REGULATIONS AVAILABLE: GO FISH GEORGIA!
SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. (January 5, 2022) – Start planning your fishing adventures for the new year and be sure to review the updated 2022 Georgia Sport Fishing Regulations Guide, says the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division (WRD).
“Whether you are brand new to fishing or an experienced angler, you can always find something of interest in the Sport Fishing Regulations Guide,” said Scott Robinson, Chief of the WRD Fisheries Management Section. “This publication is developed with the help of fisheries biologists and staff to ensure it has the most current and accurate information on regulations and new opportunities and anglers can access it in multiple ways, including online, from our Outdoors GA app or in the printed copy.”
Anglers should note there was delayed production of a printed copy of the 2022 Georgia Sport Fishing Regulations guide due to paper accessibility and manufacturing issues. It is anticipated the print version will be available by the end of January. The guide can now be found online at http://www.eregulations.com/georgia/fishing/, or through the Outdoors GA app (free app for iPhone or Android users). If you need a printed copy sooner, a pdf of the publication will be available online (you can choose to print the full book or only the information you need).
The 2022 Georgia Sport Fishing Regulations Guide provides information such as a color fish identification chart for both freshwater and saltwater fish, license purchasing information, contact information for Wildlife Resources Division and Coastal Resources Division fisheries management offices and DNR Law Enforcement offices, trout stream listings, public fishing area information, state record fish listings, fishing regulations for Georgia and so much more.
What’s New for 2022? Check out this quick bullet list below and get all the details in the new guidebook:
• Minnow trap use is now legal in freshwaters.
• Waters Creek trout regulations have changed.
· Largemouth bass regulations have changed on two Public Fishing Areas.
Fall is in the air. For the first time in months I was happy to fish in the sun in the Sportsman Club tournament a week ago last Sunday. It got hot later, but at daylight it was a bit cool on the water fishing in the shade.
A sure sign its fall is the preparation for the annual three club tournament at Lake Martin. We look forward to this tournament we hold the second weekend of October each year. We usually catch a lot of bass, mostly pound size spots, but it is a lot of fun getting lots of bites.
Last year 24 of the 29 fishermen had limits both days, two more had a limit one day and four keepers on the other day, and no one weighed in less than five keepers. And many of those fish were caught on topwater baits including the 3.74-pound spot I caught on Saturday. That one gave me a thrill!
Members of the Spalding County Sportsman Club also get ready for our Club Classic, held the first weekend in October. To qualify to fish it, members must fish at least eight of the 12 tournaments during the year or finish in the top eight in the club for the year.
Some of the entry fees from monthly club tournaments are reserved for payout at the Classic. The top five get a check as well as the big fish winner. There is a good bit of money paid out, much more than in regular tournaments.
The Potato Creek Bassmasters also has a Club Classic with similar rules and pay-out. It is held the last weekend in March. It is much anticipated, too, and adds to the special spring feelings.
Last week I smelled burning leaves for the first time this year. I love that smell. Often when fishing on a very cold day a whiff of burning leaves can seem to warm you up a little.
It takes me back to raking pecan leaves in the yard, piling them in the ditch and burning them. My favorite part was going back out there when there were just embers left, usually a cool late afternoon, and scratching around for missed pecans.
They usually seemed to be roasted just right. I think since they settled to the bottom of the pile against the ground, most of the heat went up and did not burn them.
We roasted pecans in the oven most of the year, too. Daddy also ordered 50-pound bags of peanuts every year and the bag was always available to get a pan out and put in the oven. Most nights the family sat around the den watching TV after dinner eating roasted nuts or a bowl of ice cream before bed.
Now the whine of leaf blowers replaces the rhythmic scraping of a rake and disturbs the peace. Blowers may be a lot faster, but I hate fishing on a nice peaceful morning only to hear someone crank up a leaf blower and make a lot of noise for hours on end. On a lake with lots of houses it is a constant sound all day.
I heard a DJ on the radio today say there was a sure sign fall is here. The dollar stores are putting out Valentine stuff. Seriously, Christmas stuff is already showing up in some area stores a month before Halloween. Seems a big early to me.
Are we in too big a hurry nowadays? We can’t wait to a holiday in a couple of months to the point of missing the excitement of the ones coming up. And it seems the same for hunters and fishermen. Bass boats scream around the lake, trying to find that perfect spot. Hunters can’t sit still in deer stands, they have to ride their four wheelers in the woods scaring the deer for everyone else.
My favorite season is a toss up between spring and fall. I love the warming weather in spring, the new growth of plants and animals and the fantastic fishing. Planting gardens is always a great anticipation of coming delicious vegetables.
But fall starts hunting seasons and great fishing again. And the bounty of the garden is ending but still producing delicious fresh meals, with digging potatoes one of my favorites. And fall crops of broccoli, cabbage and other cool weather veggies are another anticipation.
One of the best things about fall, the opposite of spring, is the disappearance of bugs. Cooler nights seem to lessen them and the first frost makes most mosquitos, ticks, flies and other irritating bugs disappear.
Many people travel to the mountains to see the colorful leaves each year. I much prefer seeing them from a deer stand. Mountain and valley vistas are nice but sitting in a tree on a ridge over a creek valley is even better to me, since the anticipation of seeing a deer is there.
Deer camp the first week of November is something we look forward to every year, too. Every club has different camps, but all involve fires, good food, great companionship and an escape from the reality of modern life. It takes most of us back to simpler times when the world was not quite so crazy.
Roughing it at deer camp can also make me appreciate the conveniences of modern life. Going four or five days without a hot shower is not something I enjoy, but fortunately, my camp is close enough to drive home every other day for a shower.
Cooking on an open fire is fun – a couple of times. But having to do it every day makes me appreciate the ease of cooking a variety of things an open fire just can not produce. Biscuits, pies and cakes are some of the things you really need an oven to cook!
Wild salmon are struggling to get their groove back. Along North America’s Pacific coast, salmon populations—already hit by overfishing—have been forced to dodge the Blob and hungry seals. For years, Canada has tried to help bolster the salmon population by releasing hatchery-raised juvenile fish, or smolts, into the wild.
Scientists know these hatchery smolts don’t do well in the wild—the fish tend to die younger than their wild brethren and reproduce less, but it’s unclear why.
In a recent study, however, researchers think they’ve hit upon a possible explanation. In two British Columbia streams, researchers caught coho salmon smolts that were making their way out to sea for the first time. Some of the fish had been born in hatcheries, while others were wild. Comparing the genetics of the hatchery- and wild-born smolts, the scientists found a huge difference between the two populations. But the changes weren’t so much in their genetics as in how their genes were regulated and expressed—their epigenetics.
Epigenetics is the physical and molecular processes that control how the instructions contained within DNA get expressed or turned into the proteins that affect day-to-day life. Often, epigenetics causes a gene to be expressed more or less frequently than it otherwise would. Everything from stress to chemicals to natural processes like puberty can cause epigenetic changes. Some of the changes are temporary or reversible, while others last forever.
Suppose, for instance, that rather than a jumble of folded proteins, your DNA is a cassette tape of Phil Collins’s 1985 smash album No Jacket Required. When you were born, your DNA was a factory-made tape—you had the same physical spool of tape, more or less, as 13 million other fans.
But say a section of your tape was kinked or twisted after unspooling in the stereo of your Trans Am, garbling the classic riffs of “Sussudio.” Meanwhile, your brother can rock out to “Sussudio” just fine, but he accidentally erased the sultry chorus of “Inside Out” while making a mixtape for his girlfriend. Much like these changes will affect which of Collins’s epic rhythms you and your brother respectively blast, epigenetics can permanently or semipermanently affect how genes get expressed.
In the case of the salmon, Louis Bernatchez, a population biologist at Laval University who worked on the new research, found that while hatchery- and wild-born coho smolts have similar genetic profiles—which makes sense since the two are closely related—some parts of their DNA have wildly different epigenetics. But more than this, Bernatchez found that all the hatchery-raised fish had similar epigenetic changes, even for fish reared at different hatcheries.
Just as two different cassettes chewed up in the same spot of “One More Night” suggest an issue with the tape deck, Bernatchez suspected there’s something about hatchery life that triggers epigenetic changes. He points to two features as possible suspects: atypical food and overcrowding.
“Some of those genes are important in appetite, important in osmoregulation,” Bernatchez says. He stresses that these epigenetic effects don’t necessarily explain hatchery fish’s shortcomings as adults. In part, that’s because it’s still not completely clear which traits they affect, or how long the changes last. But it does open new avenues to explore.Hatchery-born coho salmon smolts have epigenetic changes as a result of hatchery living, which may affect them for life. Photo by Stock Connection Blue/Alamy Stock Photo
In Washington State, hatchery-spawned steelhead also do poorly in the wild. But Penny Swanson, division director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, says that while epigenetics may play a part, there are other factors that could account for hatchery fish’s struggles.
For example, fish that do well in hatcheries often have voracious appetites and grow quickly, she says. This serves them well in captivity, but not in the wild, where searching for food and enduring hunger are more important. But it’s not clear if hatchery conditions lead to a form of artificial selection, where the quickest gobblers survive, or if the food, temperature, or relatively sedentary lifestyle are modifying the fish’s genes through epigenetic effects.
Swanson thinks Bernatchez’s research lays important groundwork for untangling the different factors, but there’s still a lot to study, such as epigenetics in fish at different ages. This is tricky to do with wild populations, she says, in comparison to the captive or domestic animals on which most epigenetics research is done, because the natural genetic variation is much wider and less understood.
Mackenzie Gavery, a post-doctorate researcher working with Swanson, agrees that it’s a leap to suggest the epigenetic changes seen in smolts are affecting their success as adults. There’s a big gap in time between when smolts head out to sea and when they return to breed as adults, she says. Gavery also notes that many epigenetic changes are natural, transient, and even reversible. Like straightening a twisted cassette ribbon by rewinding it with a pencil, epigenetic changes in the smolts may be gone by the time they return to spawn.
Bernatchez hopes that further study will untangle how persistent the epigenetic changes are, as well as make it clearer how they’re manifesting in the fish. But it’s a new field, and the researchers still have a long long way to go.
Spending as much time outdoors as I have is bound to present some unusual encounters. Nature has many wonders and they always fascinated me. While growing up and most of my life I have had many books to identify plants and animals in the wild. Now I have apps on my phone to do it.
On a church group camping trip when I was about eight years old, two events stand out in my mind. We camped at an old mill pond and could not wait for the weekend of fishing, swimming, cooking on fires and trying to stay awake all night.
The first afternoon I went off by myself, fishing along the small branch below the dam. I noticed something in the shallows and when I got close, I got nervous, I had never seen anything like it. It looked like a big, thick 16-inch-long mottled brow slimy looking lizard with a red frill around its neck. For a minute I was afraid it was a baby “Godzilla,” growing like the one I had seen in the original movie grow from a leg that was blown off the adult.
Being a kid, I killed it with a stick and took it back to camp. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. When I got home I looked it up and found that it was an “Eastern Hellbender” salamander, the biggest salamander in the US. North Georgia is the extreme southern end of its range so to find on in middle Georgia was very unusual.
Ironically enough, in the early 1970s my favorite lure was a Hellbender, an early crankbait. Linda caught an eight-pound bass at Clarks Hill trolling one in 1971. The lure looked nothing like the real thing, though.
Back at the camp on the mill pond, someone killed a big fat water snake. That night around the fire I got out my trusty pocketknife and split it open. It has 17 eggs in it, mama was developing more water snakes. Someone threw it on the fire against the advice of the adults with us and we all learned how terrible burning snake smells.
Freshwater mussels always interested me. Their shells litter the banks in most of our lakes. Birds and otters will eat them. I have found piles of them under boat docks on a float where an otter went to dinner regularly.
I love all kinds of seafood including oysters, clams and mussels, so I just had to try a freshwater mussel. I found a live one at Clarks Hill that was as big as my fist, so I took it up to the kitchens and steamed it in the oven.
I might as well have scooped up a handful of the mud it was in and put it in my mouth. That’s what it tasted like!
I have never been shy about trying different kinds of food and have always said “I will eat anything that doesn’t eat me first.” That has produced some interesting experiences traveling with Linda all over the world.
While on a nature hike in the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil with a survival training Captain in the Brazil Army, he showed us many typed of food provided by nature.
He showed us how to tease a tarantula spider out of its hole, saying they tasted good roasted and the fire burned oft the hairs that would tickle your mouth. He then cut a vine up high then cut the bottom, grabbing it quickly. It was full of water, several of us had a swallow of the pure water in the jungle before it all ran out.
He also cut a palm branch with a small nut looking growth on it and said it was a palm nut, similar to a coconut. He told us the meat of the nut was good food but inside was often a source of protein, a palm nut grub. When he split the nut, sure enough there was a grub inside. It reminded me of the grub worms we dig up here.
He asked if anyone would eat it. After a few seconds of quiet, I said I would. When I put in in my mouth and bit down, it popped. It did taste like coconut!
About half of us on that cruise ship flew back to Miami from Manus, Brazil on a chartered 777. When Linda and I were bordered first and put in the two first class front seats, others looked at us and asked how we got those seats.
High lakes trout fishing is one of Washington’s premier recreational pastimes. Geology pressed its thumb into some of the state’s most gorgeous places when it laid in the alpine lakes. Trails into remote mountain potholes wander across flowered meadows and pass through shady forests of cedar, fir and hemlock. At trail’s end, trout grow plump on mayflies, midges and other minute delectables.
Western Washington has about 1,600 lakes that are considered “high” lakes, above 2,500 feet elevation. East of the Cascades, nearly 950 lakes lie above 3,500 feet, which qualifies them as high lakes. A small percentage of our high lakes have self-sustaining trout populations, while others are stocked periodically with a variety of trout species. Still others are purposely left barren.
Some lakes are stocked every two or three years, while others may be stocked only once in a decade, dictated by average fishing pressure and lake productivity. These rotating stocking schedules cause a lake’s trout abundance and size to vary from year to year. Finding the season’s hot spots is part of the fun: topographical maps, good hiking equipment and a willingness to get out and explore are as important to high lakes angling success as the right terminal tackle.
The “Leave No Trace” Ethic
Special alpine etiquette is mandatory for these mountain adventures. With approximately 100,000 anglers and a million hikers roaming Washington’s high country each season, care must be taken to minimize human impact. Alpine meadows and shorelines are often extremely delicate. Ill-planned camps or focused foot traffic on fragile near-shore vegetation can easily leave near-permanent scars. Wilderness resource users must educate themselves on the simple, but essential, principles of no-trace camping and hiking. The U.S. Forest and National Park Services offer several excellent brochures on this subject; pick one up at your local USFS Ranger Station or Park Service district office.
Alpine fish populations are often equally fragile. Thoughtful anglers practice catch-and-release fishing (see “Tips for Successful Catch-and-Release Fishing”), keeping just one or two for the pan and releasing the rest for others to enjoy. Often, it’s a long way back to the car on a warm summer day and the fish may spoil on the way out. What would have been a delicious meal in camp or a larger fighting fish for another angler is no better than garden fertilizer by the time you get home.
Although fish entrails are biodegradable, a respectful alpine angler will never discard them in lake shallows where they can be seen by others. Pack out viscera in a zip-lock bag, or dispose of them in water at least 25′ deep. Never bury or try to burn fish parts near the lake; the remains may attract sharp-nosed bears. Burial at least 100 yards away from the lake, trail or camps is an acceptable alternative.
Please remember the following tips for responsible use of our back-country:
Take the time to learn both fishing and land-use regulations for the area you plan to visit.
Pack out everything you pack in; if possible, take out any litter from less-thoughtful hikers or anglers.
Maintain water quality by keeping human waste and waste water away from lakes and streams. If possible, camp at least 200 feet from the nearest lake or stream.
Where campfires are legal and safe, use an established fire ring and only dead and downed wood.
Pack out the offal from any fish kept, or dispose of it in a manner that will not attract wildlife or harm the aesthetics of the area.
Be mindful of damaging fragile vegetation, both along the shoreline and in campsites.
The Fish and Fishery
Most fish stocked in our high lakes are rainbow, cutthroat or eastern brook trout. (“Brookies” are not a true trout, but actually belong to the char genus.) Other trout or char that can be found in some lakes include brown trout, mackinaw or lake trout (another char) and bull trout/Dolly Varden (also char). A few lakes have been stocked with golden trout, Kamloops-strain rainbows, Montana black-spot (a cutthroat sub-species) and Atlantic salmon.
The primary rainbow stock used is Mt. Whitney, of California origin. Cutthroat plants include several varieties: coastal (mostly on the west side of the Cascades), westslope (stock from Twin Lakes near Leavenworth), and Tokul Creek (from the hatchery of the same name near Snoqualmie, and originally from Lake Whatcom).
The Department of Fish and Wildlife continues a long tradition of fish stocking that began around the turn of the century when miners, loggers, woodsmen and the U.S. Forest Service transported fish to lakes in buckets and large milk cans by horse or mule. Stocking became more systematic in the late 1920’s when county governments began managing game fish and wildlife, and has continued essentially without interruption since the Department of Game was created in 1933 (since changed to Department of Wildlife in 1985, and to Department of Fish and Wildlife in 1994).
The stocking program has come a long way from the milk can days. The department now uses airplanes and helicopters to stock up to 20,000 fry at a time in the large, more heavily-used lakes. It’s not all high tech, however. A large percentage of all fry stocked are carried to the lakes on foot, and hand-stocked by groups such as the Seattle-based Trail Blazers or various Backcountry Horsemen of Washington chapters. Considerable effort is spent on accuracy and precision in maintaining the “put-grow-and-take” recreational fishery in order to ensure that these more sensitive aquatic ecosystems are not overtaxed.
Not all high lakes are maintained with fish populations. Many are left fishless to avoid impacts on the aquatic communities found in naturally fishless lakes or tarns. Many of these lakes contain invertebrate and amphibian populations that serve as genetic reservoirs throughout Washington’s subalpine and alpine ecosystems. Fish do not eliminate these species, but they can alter numbers. Thus many lakes are preserved as sites for scientific and educational purposes.
Although there is natural reproduction in some high lakes, most do not have the right conditions for a self-sustaining population. Besides correct timing of sexual maturity, most trout species need inlet or outlet streams that flow over gravel, year-round. This is an advantage for managing a quality high lakes fishery, as fish densities can be controlled by limited stocking numbers and frequencies, resulting in maximum growth to the lake’s potential.
Eastern brook trout and some strains of cutthroat and rainbow are more adaptable and prolific in their spawning habits, sometimes using springs or upwellings. A number of northern and western Cascade lakes have excessive, stunted populations of brookies or westslope cutthroat. Some of these lakes have management regulations that provide for more liberal harvest; others are stocked with predator species to bring these populations under control.
Since attractive, fishable populations can be maintained in most high lakes by stocking small fry infrequently, and at light densities, the high lake recreational fishery is one of the most cost-effective fisheries managed by WDFW.
Regulations allow fishing year-around in nearly all high lakes. (Note: As a general rule, lakes are considered “high” when over 2,500 feet in Western Washington or 3,500 feet in Eastern Washington.) Although some high lakes are ice-free in May, most clear in late June and July. These same lakes begin to freeze anytime from early October on, depending on elevation, exposure and weather.
Equipment
Fishing vies for attention with Sloan Peak in the Monte Cristo area of Snohomish County.
For the most part, fishing high lakes can be done effectively using the same techniques that are productive in low lakes. One major difference between lowland and high lakes is water clarity. The gin-clear water of high lakes requires light leader tippets (usually 4 pound test or less) and a stalking approach as the fish can see out of the lakes extremely well.
Fly fishing can be very effective in the high lakes under many weather conditions. Back-casting room is often a problem, though, unless you go to the effort to bring in a small raft or float tube. Typical fly rods and reels that you would use in low lakes or streams will work, with the main concern being rod length when broken down while hiking. Medium-weight lines (5-7 wt.) will handle most conditions for casting and presentation, while long leaders (12’+) work better than short ones. Leader tippets should be as small as possible, while maintaining 2-3 pounds breaking strength. Where fly-casting is impractical, tossing flies with a light spinning outfit and casting bubble can be equally productive.
Standard spinning rods and reels can be used very effectively to fish with spinners and spoons or with bait. Light or ultra-light weight tackle is recommended. A vest or small tackle box containing a dozen or more spoons and spinners of different sizes and color patterns will usually be sufficient. For bait fishing you should obtain egg hooks in sizes 10-12, bobbers or bubbles for weight and flotation, and slip-sinkers plus split shot.
Backpacking rods that break down to short lengths to fit within a typical pack are available at most sporting goods or hiking equipment stores. Some backpacking rods will double as spinning or fly rods fairly well. Very little rod effectiveness is sacrificed for spinning or bait-casting, but most combination rods are only moderately good (at best) for fly fishing. Trolling flies can be easily done with these outfits, or casting the fly-and-bubble combination mentioned above.
Trolling requires a raft, float tube or similar device. Medium-priced inflatable vinyl rafts are available at many sporting goods outlets. A one-person raft may weigh about 5-7 pounds and have moderate durability (two to four years). More expensive rafts are available, providing greater durability, carrying capacity and less weight. Be sure to wear additional flotation (a PFD) while in a raft or other water craft, as a puncture in mid-lake creates a sinking feeling and a substantial risk of hypothermia and drowning. This is especially serious as mountain lakes are very cold. Don’t count on swimming far in water that’s typically less than 50 degrees.
Other potentially valuable gear includes: needle-nose pliers, hemostat or other gripping device for removing hooks; line clippers; knife; point-and-shoot camera; sunscreen; insect repellant; first-aid kit; and all standard hiking safety gear. (See the section below titled “Safety.”)
Techniques
Fishing from shore can be very productive. Most fish feed in the shallower water close to shore where insect activity, both terrestrial and aquatic, is highest.
Bait-fishing can be effective, using worms, eggs, artificial paste baits, or combinations. Bait can be dangled downward from a floating bobber or can float upward from a slip-sinker, both of which provide weight to cast the bait outward from shore.
Bait-fishing should only be done when you plan to keep the fish you catch, since the fish tend to swallow the bait and hook, making injury-free release much harder. This is why fish caught while using bait count as part of your daily limit, whether or not you keep them. Also check to make sure bait is legal where you’re planning to fish; some lakes have selective fishery regulations or other quality rules designed to improve survival and growth of fish.
Lures, mainly spinners or spoons, can be very effective trolled or cast, especially for cutthroat. Treble hooks can be easily replaced with single hooks and remain effective at catching fish. Releasing a fish from a single-hook spoon or spinner is relatively straightforward and easy, while it can get awkward from a treble-hook. To make release even easier and increase liklihood of survival of the fish, pinch or file down the barb or barbs.
Fly-fishing can be nearly as effective as bait-fishing. Use dry fly patterns when fish are surface feeding, and nymph, leech or other subsurface patterns when little feeding activity is apparent. Effective dry patterns include black gnat, mosquito, Adams, blue dun, black ant, and deer-hair caddis. Wet patterns of choice include wooly worms, chironomids (TDC’s), hare’s ears, and carey specials.
Timing
Spectacular scenery at Snow Lake in King County
The most effective times to fish are generally early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Midday can be slow, especially in sunny weather. Exceptions are usually related to weather and insect activity. During midday periods, when fish aren’t rising, the more effective approach is to use bait or lures near the lake bottom, 50-150 feet from shore.
Insect hatches can produce visible feeding activity at any time. If there is a single type of insect hatching, trout may be very selective and hard to catch with general fly patterns and lures. At other times, trout may be slurping a variety of insects from the surface film. A general pattern fished dead slow or cast to rises may be effective.
Weather has a significant influence on fish and insect activity. If you are heading into your favorite high lake for fishing, it’s late summer, the lakes have been ice-free for several weeks, but it’s been warm for several days and then cools off (10-20 degrees) just before the weekend, get set for some slow fishing. Insect activity usually rises and falls with temperature, and trout feeding activity seems to do the same. Another bad time is when it has been very warm for several days and the trout have gorged themselves on insects and aren’t interested in another bite, however pretty your lure. If your trip coincides with the second or third day of a warming trend, you are likely to have good fishing opportunity at some of the time on your trip. But if the weather turns foul, the fishing usually does likewise.
Safety
The keys to a safe and enjoyable high country fishing adventure are preparedness and a healthy respect for nature. Keep the following in mind when planning your trip:
Solitude is great, but the buddy system is much safer, especially off-trail. Always tell someone where you’re going and when you intend to return.
Mountain lakes are too cold to do much swimming in. Check frequently for leaks in rafts. Use an inflatable sleeping pad as insulation under you and as a backup flotation device. Wear a personal floatation device; some PFD designs, such as slim “horse collar” types and inflatable suspenders, are relatively unobtrusive.
Even for day trips, carry raingear, warm clothes, survival blanket, compass, map, extra food, backpacking stove and flashlight, especially when off-trail.
Never walk on a “frozen” lake. The freezing pattern is erratic, so a lake may have some supporting ice below the surface snow/slush in one spot, but be unsupported in another. For this reason, high lakes are generally unsuitable for ice fishing, particularly in Western Washington.
Suggested Lakes
The high lakes listed below are recommended for hiker/anglers who are interested in experiencing trout fishing in the Cascade mountains and foothills. This list is intended as a general guide only. It is by no means complete–nor guaranteed.
Lakes were selected using the combined experience of members of the Washington Hi-Lakers and Trail Blazer clubs and WDFW professional biological staff. These lakes are on maintained trail systems or have road access, and are considered able to withstand the increased fishing pressure that might result from their listing here. They generally have self-sustaining populations of trout, or are regularly stocked by the WDFW. After the county-by-county listing of hike-in lakes is a list of “drive-to” lakes.
These chunky rainbows are typical of what can be produced with proper high lake fishery management.
Several methods are provided to help locate listed lakes. First, an approximate location based on geographic features or trailheads is given. Next are a page number and map coordinates for locating that lake in the Washington Atlas and Gazeteer (DeLorme Mapping Company). Following that, specific township (N) and range (E or W) data are provided, followed by elevation (in feet above mean sea level), both taken from Lakes of Washington, Volumes I and II (Wolcott, 1973). The latest USGS quadrangle maps for the area you intend to visit are usually the most specific and up-to-date source of trail information. U.S. Forest Service district maps are valuable aids for finding lakes and trails that fall within national forests. Specific county maps, such as those produced by the Metsker and Pittmon map companies, are also helpful.
Lastly, species information is provided. Fish species listed are the latest assessments by the review team (see above), but may not be exact or all-inclusive. Fish species and stocking schedules change occasionally because of various biological reasons.
Material in this document was originally published in SignPost for Northwest Trails, April 1986. It was edited and reprinted by the Department of Wildlife from 1987-1994. This version is adapted from a revision by Gerry Erickson of the Washington State Hi-Lakers, Bob Pfeifer and Susan Ewing of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.