Diamond Lake Cliff notes - Report

[StickFish]

Well looks like we might be headed to diamond this year need some cliff notes.

Can you beach you boat on this lake and not have to worry about rods and electronics?

What are the typical methods there? Long lining? Down riggers, anchor and plunk?

What are the typical baits - worms, corn

I'm assuming the typical lures and flashers are the norm.

Usually we are at Miller for Father's Day Weekend but that is getting to be a remote possibility.

Thanks for the how 2's for the new lake

[Wang]

All I've ever done at Diamond is still fish Powerbait or a Mike's green garlic mallow over a worm. Anchor bow and stern so you don't move and have at it.
We left our stuff in the boat minus the rods, but the boat was right down the hill from our camp.

[Jedcraft]

pm sent

[Small Fry]

If your camped right on the water you should be ok. The only problem I had in the past was the wind. Our boat kept breaking loose and ended up getting beat up on the shore line.

When are you headed over. I'm hoping to be over there fathers day weekend.

[StickFish]

We should be arriving on Thursday. Keep the info coming - thanks guys.

[Draggin' Bait]

I just came back from four days at Diamond Lake. By and large most anglers fish one of two methods -- anchor and fish powerbait, or troll with flashers. By and large both methods work, but they don't consistently get the largest fish. We have found that far and away the best quality fishing is in 5-10 feet of water using spinning gear and kastmasters, or flyfishing gear and slow twitching medium-to-large wet flies. Most of the fish we caught were very close to the bottom.

We fished Thursday through Sunday morning, and results were skewed because most of Thursday the wind blew hard, and both Friday and Saturday we had blowing wind combined with frequent heavy snow showers. It was COLD, and the fishing was usually slow. Sometimes we just gave it up and cowered in the camper for a few hours. Nevertheless, most of the fish we caught were 15-18 inches, and several hit 20 inches. Most of the powerbait fish were 11 - 14 inches, though I did see them take a few of the larger fish. Same with the trollers -- those sticking to it through the storms caught fish, but I don't think they were taking many of the larger fish. Thursday evening and Sunday morning the wind quit, and the fishing was great. Thursday just before dark my buddy and I caught 8 fish in two hours, average size 16 inches, largest 20 inches! Very soft takes, but heavy fish. The surface water is cold -- it varied between 43 and 48 degrees, and I think that had a lot to do with why the hits were very light on the flies and kastmasters.

Anyway, the lake is back! 10 mph speed limit again, though several boats were blatantly ignoring that. Have a good time.

[davidlee]

I'll be there for the Derby on the 21st (arriving on the morning of the 20th).

From what I recall from a trip last year, the water was very clear. I could clearly see the bottom weeds in about 15' of water. Slow sinking night crawlers around the edges of the weed beds did pretty well last year too.

[Bandy76]

We have always done better trowling than still fishing.
Both work as said before, if you have a boat full then still fishing will be better.
We troll with ford fenders & worms, flat fish, latter in the year a fly on top is also good.
Will be their Thursday a white 19' NR marinier white/gray top 2
down riggers on rail.

:meme::meme:

[StickFish]

Looks like we will be there Thursday as well - 17' Lund ProSport with Yamaha motors - "Rho Boat" on the side.

Thanks for all the tips

[spottedhawk36]

Myself and my buddies have always trolled using ford fenders and a f-3 frog flatfish, great combination has worked for many years, i havent done much still fishing there over the years.

[norms gone fishing too]

I will be down there SAt - wens would love meet any ifisher who is there I have resversation for camp site A009. Stop by and say hi. No boat but my buddie said he was going to go and he has a 18 foot sportsman. I will be glad to share info with you. I will have my hand held VHF so you can try me on that too

Norm

[Hanapa'a Time]

Good info, haven't fished there for 20 yrs. Thanks :cheers:

Ted, let me know how you guys do. We will be headed over the 19th til the 22nd. Looks like we'll have lotsa company with the Derby goin' on.

Good luck.

[StickFish]

VHF will be on 78 - ya Kurt you will have lots of company.

[Jedcraft]

Naw, wasn't bad on Sun. Great weather and only me and about 200 of my closest friends.

[davidlee]

Great article from last week here about Diamond Lake. A history/current events summary and some good tips for catching the trout now.

http://www.currypilot.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=17612

My favorite quote from the article...


"Why are the fish so hungry? Last winter was brutally long for Diamond Lake, so much that the lake didn't completely thaw until a few days ago. Now that the water's starting to warm up, they would probably eat a Zippo if one fell in the water."

[Rick on Rogue]

Naw, wasn't bad on Sun. Great weather and only me and about 200 of my closest friends.

We were part of your 'closest friends'. Put in at south launch 07:12 and joined in the festivities on the west side of the 'rodeo' Limited out about 10:30 and 'CPR'ed till about noon and then loaded up and came home.

We should get together some time and compare notes, since we live in the same town and fish a lot of the same local haunts.

Rick

[DRUNK COWBOY]

I will also be down with my wife, son and a couple friends this weekend. I have a Formula V...black with an older 200 Merc and a T8 kicker.

If ya see us, say hi :cheers:

[JECulver]

I am heading out Friday morning for 4 day. I have not fished Diamond since
1973. I will be in a 20' open aluminum.

[StickFish]

Well looks like we might be headed to diamond this year need some cliff notes.

Can you beach you boat on this lake and not have to worry about rods and electronics?

What are the typical methods there? Long lining? Down riggers, anchor and plunk?

What are the typical baits - worms, corn

I'm assuming the typical lures and flashers are the norm.

Usually we are at Miller for Father's Day Weekend but that is getting to be a remote possibility.

Thanks for the how 2's for the new lake

Just got back, so only a quick note. Thanks a ton to everyone for the information fishing was RED hot.

Fished three rods on three days and went 42/45. Smallest fish was 12" and had shoulders like a linebacker. Most fish 13-15" range and very fat. One over 20 and several 18's. Not counting the fish on friend took home and the dinner for six we had, we brought home over 30# of fish. Only two or three of them were recent hatchery fish, all others were hold overs - yum Diamond lake is back

[Hanapa'a Time]

Nice job Ted :dance: Got the Friday report from Lee :D

Did you troll the whole time???

Did you stay in the campground???

Thanks for the report :cheers:

Headed out in the AM :yay:

[StickFish]

Nice job Ted :dance: Got the Friday report from Lee :D

Did you troll the whole time???

Did you stay in the campground???

Thanks for the report :cheers:

Headed out in the AM :yay:

Yes on both

[Jedcraft]

Yeah, you guys were on fire. I spoke with you on Sat. from the silver/blue NR and you hooked up while we're BS'ing. Glad you had a nice stretch of weather too. Definately at least two strains of fish there. The one stock is clean with sharp fins, great color and orange meat - the other is some form of concrete tank refuge. Fins, tail & nose all rounded off - ugly.

[StickFish]

Yeah, you guys were on fire. I spoke with you on Sat. from the silver/blue NR and you hooked up while we're BS'ing. Glad you had a nice stretch of weather too. Definately at least two strains of fish there. The one stock is clean with sharp fins, great color and orange meat - the other is some form of concrete tank refuge. Fins, tail & nose all rounded off - ugly.

It was like that for us for three days. Oh and thanks for the info on leaving stuff in the boat. We ended up back anchoring the boat with an anchor buddy (bungee) 20' off the bank.

Now the rest of the story. There is nothing I can point at that worked better than anything else except troll speed. We caught fish between 1.6 and 1.7mph slower or faster and we didn't get bit. We used a variety of troll attractors, arrow head dogers, small fish flash and Macks flash lites. After three days neither of them had an advantage over the other, but each had its day in the sun. One day the Arrow head was king, than the fish flash, than the Flash Lite so I'm glad I had all three in the water. We tipped the troll rigs with wedding ring type lures in orange with silver hammered blades. All the hooks were replaced with size 6 bait holder hooks. At first we used large pieces of worm, got lots of chewed up worms. Quickly we went to pieces of worm about 1" to 1.5" with the hook at the end. On nibblers we would pick up a rod and pull the rig away from them and they would just smash it after that. We used 1oz of lead to get the gear down a little bit and focused on 13-15' of water with 16-18 pulls. Keeping below the thermocline that was at 5-6 feet. Nothing that isn't standard trout trolling tactics, just find the depth that works and give them a good spread.

A few of the fish

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/P1000601.JPG

The great scenery

http://www.ifish.net/gallery/data/500/medium/P1000608.JPG

Hope all you derby fisher folk do well this weekend

[Jedcraft]

That's awesome Stick, and it will only get better as long as we can keep the tui's and bass out. Bass have ruined Howards Prairie and Hyatt and Crane Prairie and Thompson Reservoir and .... Sorry got carried away there for a minute.

[StickFish]

I hear you - I find someone doing that and I will take them crab fishing in Canada - oh wait maybe someone already is :shrug:

[Jedcraft]

When see someone stumbling around in circles with no right foot we'll know who dunnit.

[steelie817]

That's awesome Stick, and it will only get better as long as we can keep the tui's and bass out. Bass have ruined Howards Prairie and Hyatt and Crane Prairie and Thompson Reservoir and .... Sorry got carried away there for a minute.

...and Davis. With the great success of Diamond I would hope that some other rotenone operations would be considered. Oregon has certainly lost much of its quality trout fishing.:(