Fishing Clear Lake (Mckenzie River)

[Salmo trutta]

Any suggestions on how to fish Clear Lake of the McKenzie River headwaters? I am planning on heading that way this weekend.

Thanks

tony

[ChinookSlayer]

Boat or bank?

There is a lava pile near the corner of the main lake by the lodge, row your boat up by it, cast a single split shot with some power bait, and let the wind drift you. If that dosen't work, tie on a woolly bugger, and with no weights at all, long line it behind the boat. The main key for clear lake, is using light line. You can go clear down to 2lb leader, with 4lb main line. Your line will make the biggest difference.

The trout in that lake are fun to catch on light gear. Have fun, and let everybody know how you do!

[Penobscot]

Go around the corner from the lodge and tie off on a tree snag near shore. Then drop a nightcrawler secured by a worm threader and you should catch all you need. Light line, threader and small hooks. I saw a few monsters swimming around but most of mine were 10-14 inches.

[cully]

Most of my fish came from pink power bait -no glitter, light line ( but 8 # worked well enough) using a colarado weight set up. I just dropped this set up over the side and down twenty feet or so and let it sit or slight row or wind drift. I mostly fished the end of the lake near the camping area, near the boat ramp. No more than 40 yards from the bank. Black Woolly Bugger worked well for me too as did worms. If your going to harvest, it's good to have a stringger. A cheap danielson one works great.

[BentMetal]

Growing up, my favorite area of the lake to fish was the north end (looking at the lake from the lodge, take a left). There is a little bit of an arm that goes up, hug the west shore. We'd always get into fish down that arm. The nice part about this part of the lake is that it is a little more sheltered (no wind chop, where the main lake might be choppy), so you might be able to see where the fish are stacked up . . . I had many weekday summer afternoons my dad would take me up there after work and we would cast single salmon eggs, powerbait, fly fish, spinners and flat fish and do really well on the trout. I always liked using the spinners cause you could see those fish following along behind . . . they might not take, but you could see them.

[Salmo trutta]

Thanks guys . I'll let you know how it goes

cheers

Tony