Kendall
08-10-2009, 07:15 PM
I'm Kendall. I found your site a few days ago while trying to pick a spot to take a bro and catch fish. Thought I would join up and PIF with a report of my own.
Great forum! Thanks for having me!
The Report...
Weather - Fantastic. Sunny. Mid-70s. Light breeze becoming about 8 knots started up around 11AM and began to hurt the fishing at around 2PM
Bugs - What bugs??? I couldn't believe it! I had bought all kinds of anti-bug technology after hearing all the reports. We got there around 6:15 and made the usual trip to the marina. They said the bugs were beginning to fade and boy howdy. The occasional dragonfly was all we saw all day!
Advice - The marina boys strongly recommended trolling with the usual suspects which meant Needlefish to me. They agreed. I had figured banana sinkers, 1.5 oz. I would use 1oz next time and go a little further back from the boat. I was figuring a mix of still fishing and trolling, but the marina boys were adamant. This was later confirmed by the gas dude just up the road. I guess a lady caught a 25 incher trolling last week.
The Trolling - Since I had the still rigs all prepared we motored over to a cluster of boats parked well out from The Cheese Hole. Too far out for my taste, but we went with the monkey-see theory. Of course if it's a monkey that the monkey is seeing... The guy ahead of us pulled one in so we decided to give this spot a shot for a bit. While I was rigging up the trolling units a guy next to us got a nice one to the boat, but without a net... lost him. And another to the other side boated. I finally could see that the bait was pink so we switched from one Chartreuse and one Orange to an Orange and a Sherbet. But there were an awful lot of boats for the number of catches we saw so we gave up and trolled over to the NW corner and then on down the Western slot. Down toward the shrimp beds the weeds come up pretty high, so we caught some of those. Then we reeled in some more weeds only to find an 8 incher dangling on there. Boy what a fight! We were mainly using orange stripe and frog Needlefish. Tried some flashers and lost one. We were in my father's mid-70s, 16' Starcraft Open Bow and its Briggs kicker can only go as slow as about 2.1 (GPS.) I feel like this may have been an issue, though the action on the Needlefish, flasher and lake troll were pretty good. Next time we'll have a bucket or 2 in the water. We released 3 more of the sub-keeper category and decided to head back over and anchor up for some lunch and easy fishing. Well... sometimes fish can be a pretty big inconvenience!
Cheese Hole - Around lunch time we anchored up just West of the group of boats, this time a little closer to the Cheese Hole, i.e closer to shore, yet still in about 35' of water. Dropped the lines with some belly in 'em and 5 minutes later one of the poles started to tell us something. Pulled in a 15 incher about 1.5#. We were both now using Sherbet with Mike's Shrimp Oil. I think at first I was just using the oil on my fingers to kill the human smell, but added it to the bait after this fish hit the stringer. Not long after came a 16 incher, then a 14 and another 16... This one was about 2#, but they were all pretty fat. Beautiful fish!
Epilogue - Unfortunately we didn't see the other boats around us do anything during this period. The wind was doing its stuff to the water by this point (2-3PM or so,) but we were enjoying ourselves too much yet, so we stuck it out a bit longer to no avail. Then headed in, pulled the boat out, gassed up and had some killer food at the lodge. The Ortega Burger was amazing!
So 5 in all with 2 poles. Had we caught the big ones first, I'm sure we would have thrown back the little guy. And had we skipped the trolling and gone straight to the bottom...
My bro said it was the best and most productive fishing session he has ever had. Certainly not mine, but it was a great, great day on the lake! I owe much of our day to the fine folks here who have posted their recent reports. OK, nobody limited out yesterday, but we caught some fine fish. This is what the ODFW report calls "slow." Had I only had that vague report to go by, we wouldn't have gone to Diamond.
I'd been trying to get him and his family up to Diamond since the demise of the Chub. I've had some quick limits with fat fish in the last couple of years. My new fishing partner is taking his whole, extended family group up there next week! He's hooked... finally! Sometimes it's tough to even GET the horse to the dang water! But once he's there... and when the water's as sweet as Diamond's...
She's truly the Gem of the Cascades!
.
.
Great forum! Thanks for having me!
The Report...
Weather - Fantastic. Sunny. Mid-70s. Light breeze becoming about 8 knots started up around 11AM and began to hurt the fishing at around 2PM
Bugs - What bugs??? I couldn't believe it! I had bought all kinds of anti-bug technology after hearing all the reports. We got there around 6:15 and made the usual trip to the marina. They said the bugs were beginning to fade and boy howdy. The occasional dragonfly was all we saw all day!
Advice - The marina boys strongly recommended trolling with the usual suspects which meant Needlefish to me. They agreed. I had figured banana sinkers, 1.5 oz. I would use 1oz next time and go a little further back from the boat. I was figuring a mix of still fishing and trolling, but the marina boys were adamant. This was later confirmed by the gas dude just up the road. I guess a lady caught a 25 incher trolling last week.
The Trolling - Since I had the still rigs all prepared we motored over to a cluster of boats parked well out from The Cheese Hole. Too far out for my taste, but we went with the monkey-see theory. Of course if it's a monkey that the monkey is seeing... The guy ahead of us pulled one in so we decided to give this spot a shot for a bit. While I was rigging up the trolling units a guy next to us got a nice one to the boat, but without a net... lost him. And another to the other side boated. I finally could see that the bait was pink so we switched from one Chartreuse and one Orange to an Orange and a Sherbet. But there were an awful lot of boats for the number of catches we saw so we gave up and trolled over to the NW corner and then on down the Western slot. Down toward the shrimp beds the weeds come up pretty high, so we caught some of those. Then we reeled in some more weeds only to find an 8 incher dangling on there. Boy what a fight! We were mainly using orange stripe and frog Needlefish. Tried some flashers and lost one. We were in my father's mid-70s, 16' Starcraft Open Bow and its Briggs kicker can only go as slow as about 2.1 (GPS.) I feel like this may have been an issue, though the action on the Needlefish, flasher and lake troll were pretty good. Next time we'll have a bucket or 2 in the water. We released 3 more of the sub-keeper category and decided to head back over and anchor up for some lunch and easy fishing. Well... sometimes fish can be a pretty big inconvenience!
Cheese Hole - Around lunch time we anchored up just West of the group of boats, this time a little closer to the Cheese Hole, i.e closer to shore, yet still in about 35' of water. Dropped the lines with some belly in 'em and 5 minutes later one of the poles started to tell us something. Pulled in a 15 incher about 1.5#. We were both now using Sherbet with Mike's Shrimp Oil. I think at first I was just using the oil on my fingers to kill the human smell, but added it to the bait after this fish hit the stringer. Not long after came a 16 incher, then a 14 and another 16... This one was about 2#, but they were all pretty fat. Beautiful fish!
Epilogue - Unfortunately we didn't see the other boats around us do anything during this period. The wind was doing its stuff to the water by this point (2-3PM or so,) but we were enjoying ourselves too much yet, so we stuck it out a bit longer to no avail. Then headed in, pulled the boat out, gassed up and had some killer food at the lodge. The Ortega Burger was amazing!
So 5 in all with 2 poles. Had we caught the big ones first, I'm sure we would have thrown back the little guy. And had we skipped the trolling and gone straight to the bottom...
My bro said it was the best and most productive fishing session he has ever had. Certainly not mine, but it was a great, great day on the lake! I owe much of our day to the fine folks here who have posted their recent reports. OK, nobody limited out yesterday, but we caught some fine fish. This is what the ODFW report calls "slow." Had I only had that vague report to go by, we wouldn't have gone to Diamond.
I'd been trying to get him and his family up to Diamond since the demise of the Chub. I've had some quick limits with fat fish in the last couple of years. My new fishing partner is taking his whole, extended family group up there next week! He's hooked... finally! Sometimes it's tough to even GET the horse to the dang water! But once he's there... and when the water's as sweet as Diamond's...
She's truly the Gem of the Cascades!
.
.