trollin4trout
07-14-2008, 12:54 PM
Another magic day at Lawrence on Saturday! This is an awsome small lake at the base of Mt. Hood. Electric motors only and NO BAIT- flies and lures only. It can be hard sometimes to get the fish to bite here. They are always plentiful as can be seen by them rising all over the lake. But they are kind of picky little guys.
Started fishing by 6am by myself and trolled a few flies on the surface on the way to the west end- no strikes at all. Switched to lures and got no strikes- so sent the downrigger down to be 3ft. off the bottom and had near instant success. Caught around 15 in the first two hours. Thought I was doing OK- but remembered some previous successes I've had with a yellow woolly bugger, so I went back to just a fly on the end of the line and trolled 3 ft. off the bottom in 10ft to 25 ft. of water. They absolutely loved that fly!!!! I would get a hit/miss or fish on/off or caught every 5 minutes- or LESS! Soon a few others were joining me in that end- but only saw one boat trolling flies on the surface who was slamming them right and left. Don't know what they were using though.
I finally asked this one guy in a small rubber kiyak and a fly rod how the catching was? Nothing he said. I asked him if he had anything yellow- nope. So I motored over and gave him a yellow bugger like mine. He caught a fish in 5 minutes! A half hour later he came paddling furiously back to me- "I had to come thank you for that fly- I just caught a beautiful 18 inch rainbow over there!" He showed me his cell pic of it. Impressive big fish! I have never caught a big fish there- 14inch is my best so far. He continued to catch fish all day- he would just shake his head every time we passed- "I can't believe how well that works".
Gave 2 more flys to a guy and his wife in a canoe who I had been watching not catch anything for awhile. The guy tied one on and caught two fish in 5 minutes! The lady said she lost hers ( no doubt tied a girly knot:D) I tried to give her another but she wouldn't take it. Later she said she used some kind of yellow bass plug and caught a fish with it!
I stuck it out through the heat of the day until about 7pm when I started finding myself turning the downrigger handle in the wrong direction and tighening the drag on my pole instead of loosening it- the brain was drained! Time to give it up. Ended up with a total of 95 trout- 75 of them caught on the same fly- a store bought cheap one BTW- still going strong!
This is not the first time a yellow fly has worked there for me- this makes 4 trips in a row- not just having good fishing- but phenomenal catching 4 times in a row! Did I say YELLOW?
I'll post a couple shots later tonight that I took of an eagle and a heron I saw there. The eagle was impressing people by swooping right down next to their boats trying to grab the fish on their lines. Never saw him steal one but he was big and cool!
Started fishing by 6am by myself and trolled a few flies on the surface on the way to the west end- no strikes at all. Switched to lures and got no strikes- so sent the downrigger down to be 3ft. off the bottom and had near instant success. Caught around 15 in the first two hours. Thought I was doing OK- but remembered some previous successes I've had with a yellow woolly bugger, so I went back to just a fly on the end of the line and trolled 3 ft. off the bottom in 10ft to 25 ft. of water. They absolutely loved that fly!!!! I would get a hit/miss or fish on/off or caught every 5 minutes- or LESS! Soon a few others were joining me in that end- but only saw one boat trolling flies on the surface who was slamming them right and left. Don't know what they were using though.
I finally asked this one guy in a small rubber kiyak and a fly rod how the catching was? Nothing he said. I asked him if he had anything yellow- nope. So I motored over and gave him a yellow bugger like mine. He caught a fish in 5 minutes! A half hour later he came paddling furiously back to me- "I had to come thank you for that fly- I just caught a beautiful 18 inch rainbow over there!" He showed me his cell pic of it. Impressive big fish! I have never caught a big fish there- 14inch is my best so far. He continued to catch fish all day- he would just shake his head every time we passed- "I can't believe how well that works".
Gave 2 more flys to a guy and his wife in a canoe who I had been watching not catch anything for awhile. The guy tied one on and caught two fish in 5 minutes! The lady said she lost hers ( no doubt tied a girly knot:D) I tried to give her another but she wouldn't take it. Later she said she used some kind of yellow bass plug and caught a fish with it!
I stuck it out through the heat of the day until about 7pm when I started finding myself turning the downrigger handle in the wrong direction and tighening the drag on my pole instead of loosening it- the brain was drained! Time to give it up. Ended up with a total of 95 trout- 75 of them caught on the same fly- a store bought cheap one BTW- still going strong!
This is not the first time a yellow fly has worked there for me- this makes 4 trips in a row- not just having good fishing- but phenomenal catching 4 times in a row! Did I say YELLOW?
I'll post a couple shots later tonight that I took of an eagle and a heron I saw there. The eagle was impressing people by swooping right down next to their boats trying to grab the fish on their lines. Never saw him steal one but he was big and cool!