After weekly bass fishing with my fishing partner, Rich, on the lower Snake River and Columbia River all summer, we were excited with the cooling weather and the plan to fish for trout in a Columbia Basin lake. So, the plan was set for Rich to adjust his part-time work schedule for a Wednesday trip 2.5 hours north to a lake we have fished later in the fall. The lake is known for large rainbows and browns in a dramatically beautiful setting, common to the Eastern Washington sage steppe geography. Not so beautiful is the suspension challenging access road.
The plan was for Rich to reach my driveway at 5:30 am to add my float tube and gear to his 28-year-old Nisson pickup for our long road trip north. The afternoon before I settled on packing two rods, a ‘new to me’ Sage SP+ 6 wt., a stiff, powerful rod that can handle full-sinking lines and casting from a low riding float tube. It might also double for handling heavy streamers, if I decided to dredge for those large brown trout. Just in case, I did pack my usual streamer rod along with my boat box of streamers.
With everything staged in the garage I was prepped to go when Rich rolls up in the morning. After preparing a quick lunch, I bid my wife goodnight and headed to bed at 8:00 for a 4:30 wake-up by the subtle alarm on my phone next to the bed.
A combination of my usual poor sleep pattern and looking forward to the trip had me waking up every hour to look at the clock starting at 2:30. At 4:15 I considered getting up but decided to wait for the alarm. Remember I said “subtle” alarm? Yup, I slept through it and when I looked again it was 5:30. I keep the alarm volume low so as not to wake my wife when I get up before her every weekday to prep coffee and breakfast for her and our grandson before he goes to school. I rocketed out of bed, threw on shorts and a tee shirt, ran downstairs, and looked out the front door. There he was, right on time and I’m not ready. This is exactly how one gets bumped from the fishing partner status. I have had to make that cut in the past for a habitually late fishing partner. Fortunately for me, Rich and I have known each other for a few years, first at work and more recently from fishing together regularly. As he pointed out, neither of us makes being late a habit or even ever, so we are still good. I also think we are good fishing partners as fellow fly fishermen when in a boat he casts left-handed and I right-handed (even though I am naturally left-handed). We rarely get in each other’s way.
So, I made a quick cup of coffee, threw on some more appropriate clothes, brushed my teeth and off we went after loading the truck. We were a 1/2-hour late but still jacked for the day ahead. The sun was well up when we arrived at the lake around 8:30 and the truck survived the access road. Not another car in the parking lot as we unloaded and set up our tubes and gear.
As I said the scenery is dramatic and, fortunately, the weather was cool but not miserably so. Cloud cover eased my mind about neglecting sunscreen in my haste to get going.
The fishing started slowly while we worked through fly patterns to find out what the rainbows were interested in. On the top of the list for this lake are leech patterns and dragon fly nymphs. I started with a deer hair dragon fly nymph with foam cylinder eyes that has worked in the past. I got a couple of bumps, but no real takes, then a black leech pattern that really looks good to me though I’ve never caught anything on it – nothing. Rich, by now, had caught a couple of nice trout on a dragon fly nymph, so I opened my “lake box” and pulled out an olive dragon fly nymph I tied many years ago for a small lake back home in Western New York. I have them in brown and olive, which I tied probably over 30 years ago.
Maybe old, but they did the trick and resulted in several healthy rainbows. In all we enjoyed a beautiful fall day on a quiet trout lake.
