Let's Go Fishing - Bennington Lake

Sunset on Bennington Lake

Recently some Walla² Fly Fishers have been fishing the lake after work and weekends.Most or our PM fishing has been very successful - averaging 50-75 hookups, with 40-60 long line releases and a few nice trout have received invitations to dinner.

The take home for 6-6

  The take home for 6-7

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​Fresh trout with fresh WA asparagus - an early June treat

Most recent fishing reports have come back saying...

May 10 - Full moon – Barbara and Dale fished the lake… Dale’s first time on this lake. Both using a BS Special. Fishing was good with many hookup and filling creel with 5 trout each. Best under the Full Moon catching Dale has ever experienced. Dale had one fly stolen.

Dale having caught a full creel of trout - with a full moon rising

June 6 – Barbara and Dale had a very good evening on the lake… hooking 30-50 fish, many long line releases, creeled 5 trout each. Both using a BS Special.

June 7 – Barbara and Dale, joined by Heidi had a great evening on the lake… many hookups, many long line releases with a lot of fish throwing the fly on their leap from the water. 

Great catching, great FUN

click on corner box to go FULL screen - best picture

June 11 – Full moon – Barbara, Heidi, and Dale had very slow fishing. Maybe no more that 12 strikes each. Dale had maybe 6 hookups for 3-4 seconds, Barbara the same with 2 trout landed. Heidi and I came out empty handed.
Mike Wallace fished the lake during mid-afternoon, and had very poor results.
Brian fishing from the shore had a couple of good strikes, nothing creeled, had one fly stolen.
Ran into Daniel Biggs, fishing from the shore, hooking a few trout, more crappie than trout as a mayfly hatch was coming off at 8:45-9:00pm Daniel says this hatch gets really thick in the next couple of weeks. Should have #12 Stimulators ready to go into action at any time.

June 13 – Barbara fished the lake after work, reports catching was slow, but she had two fresh rainbows for dinner. Reports she is beginning to run low on BS Specials.

June 21 – We had our monthly club meeting was held on the lake today. In attendance were Tom, Diane, Dick, Barbara, Robin, Harold, Heidi, Dale, Daniel with a young friend learning to fly fish. Most folks arrived between 6:00 and 7:00pm. Fishing has become rather slow with water temperature rising. Most of the catch were crappies, and a couple of trout. Most everyone "worked" the lake until 8:30. It was an enjoyable evening on the lake for all, catching or not... fishing is good. "Damn it" Dale did not have his camera to get photos of this outing.

Barbara reported on August 1st

Fishing at Bennington. I've been catching a lot lately, tonight 1 trout, 7 crappie and 1 bluegill. Daniel says he and Robin caught 40 assorted fish the other night.
I also fished this morning and caught 2 trout, 2 crappie

Dale reported on August 14

Report from Bennington This evening - fishing was good This evening - catching was not so good. Temperatures today were in the low 80's and all the Canadian smoke is gone. So after the evening news and weather, I went out to sit on Bennington Lake - rod in hand. It was calm, quite, and a beautiful sunset. Catching was slow - two crappie, and one burly set of whiskers.

Dale has posted a lot of stillwater fishing tips / how to's on the club blog. The next move is up to you. Let's Go Fishing

http://wallawallaflyfishers.blogspot.com/

Reported by Dale McKain 

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

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Let's Go Fishing - Penland Lake

Walla² Fly Fishers - Brian, Steven and Dale with Buddy headed out this morning with a forecast for a beautiful day to be sitting on the water, and searching for trout at Penland Lake.

   
Distance to the lake from the Walla Walla Fairgrounds is 117 miles and travel time is about 2¾ hours. Lake elevation is 4,941 feet. 

Penland Lake is a 67-acre lake located southeast of Heppner, OR.  The lake is fairly shallow with good bank access. Facilities at the lake include a developed campground and picnic area. Boating is permitted but limited to non-gasoline powered craft - row boats, pontoon boats, float tubes. 

Steven traveling Hwy 395 from Tri-Cities arrived at the lake before Brian and Dale. From Hwy 395 at the Hwy 244 intersection, turn right on the Western Route Rd. which is in the middle of forest, meadows and pastures, with easy road signs to follow, to the lake.

Leaving Hwy 395 onto National Forest Rd 21 - Western Route Rd - onto National Forest Rd 2103

 
Dale was driving, and he shot right pass this turnoff to the lake, which is 3-miles from the paved road, 2-miles to the lake.


 
Upon arriving at the lake it was a beautiful sight.

From the shore ~ boat launch area

From off shore looking at the boat launch area

Shortly after arrival it was time for lunch for all. We pulled out our sandwiches, and drink, stood around chatting and noticed a nice hatch of Callibaetis "Mayflies" coming off the lake.

About a size 14 Adams

Since Steven had gotten to the lake before Brian and Dale, we asked him what fly pattern he was using to find the trout he had hooked onto. He said was using a red Copper John all morning, but said as a mid-day breeze had started coming up the hookups were farther apart. Dale mentioned that approaching High Noon - bright light - the fish were probably running deeper as well.

While eating lunch, we noticed a Bald Eagle appears and makes a splashing cruise over the lake. We could not tell if it had caught a trout or not. Later in the afternoon there were two eagles working overhead. Made a beautiful sight on this high mountain lake. Beautiful Bald Eagles.

 




Brian and Dale started their trout search this day with the BS Special that they had tied Thursday evening at our Project Healing Waters fly tying session.

Fishing after lunch, was most pleasant. The sun was shining bright, the air was very mild, and several people including Dale were wet wade fishing. After the sun went down behind the trees there were several young fishermen jumped into the lake for an evening swim. A most pleasant day to be at Penland Lake.
But in the meantime, our high hopes of an afternoon full of catching, turned into an afternoon of mostly fishing.

The breeze that was stirring and felt so good at lunchtime, got stronger and made casting and holding our boats in place very difficult. The Stars and Stripes across from the boat launch, flew further and further unfurled from the flag pole as the afternoon progressed, and the waves on the lake begin to crest with small whitecaps. So around 5:00 pm we called off our fishing for the day. For this day Steven had caught over a dozen fish, Brian had hooked into about a dozen fish, and Dale had gotten jerked around by 6-8 trout. A great day of fishing, a slow day of catching.

We were on the road by 5:30 and driving back through the hills and flats that surround the Ukiah area. A beautiful big valley of open space, surrounded by mountains of 5,000' to 8,000' wildlife and a lot of fishing opportunities. Here most of the time, one has the world to themself's and the glory of nature.

Arriving home just in time to unload the pickup and gaze at a beautiful sunset,

and noticed the moon overhead... 

 Waxing gibbous ~ Visible: 70% and ↑

So with all said and done, it was another wonderful day of fly fishing in another Oregon Territory ~ high mountain lake.

Report submitted by
Dale McKain
with Buddy

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

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