Let's Go Fishing - Jubilee Lake

Report of 26 July 2017

 Jubilee Lake is a 92.3-acre man-made lake in the
Umatilla National Forest - Elevation 4,761 feet.
Jubilee Lake is about 50 miles from Walla Walla,
and take about 1½ hour to get there.

​​​Buddy and I had a beautiful late afternoon trip fishing Jubilee Lake.

​​​When we arrived at the lake the air temperature was 85°, today's high temp was 97° in WW.

Started fishing today using a fast-full sink link and a FAB fly.

​​​After about a half hour of testing the water, I caught 2 legal fish with the FAB fly... my first using this fly.
I got the materials from Devin Olsen to start tying this fly Thursday evening with the Project Healing Waters guys.

Thereafter I switched to a BS Special, still using a fast-full sink line.

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The third fish I caught hooked up with connected fast to the BS Special, and nearly bent my rod 2-wt SPL double. I do enjoy the fight on an ultra-light fly rod.
Nice fight, nice fish- 14½". I invited this guy to join me and Buddy for breakfast.

​​During the entire late afternoon / evening I landed a dozen or more fish, but kept them alive, hoping to catch another like the third one.

After the sun dropped behind the trees the pm air had a very gentle breeze, and the temperature dropped nicely.

As the clock on the wall approached 8:00 pm, I kept the next two larger fish that I hooked and called it a day well done.

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When I got home the ODOT camera  was showing 70° at Tollgate.

I am learning that to beat the weekend crowds that show up at Jubilee Lake... mid-week fishing is very relaxing, and peaceful. Retirees, self-employed, free lancers, let me know if you would like to join me next week at Jubilee Lake; we will make plans for it.

Tight lines and good fishing,

Reported by Dale McKain

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Report of 22 July 2017

​Again there were quite a few people hanging around the boat launch area, but nothing like 2 weeks ago.

As I was leaving the lake heading for Tollgate, I have never passed so many vehicles on the NF 64 road, heading in the direction of the lake - heavy summer weekend traffic, me thinks.​
Got on the water about 4 PM yesterday, fishing was slow, until about 6. I had a couple of dozen soft strikes until the sun left the water, thereafter 6 fish landed, and kept 4.

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Spent the first couple of hours just trolling a FAB fly, with a full fast sink line - just having soft strikes, no take downs.

​Barbara had great success with the FAB fly on the 4th of July at Jubilee.

I then switched to a BS Special, 

​using an intermediate sink line, and fish quite ignoring me and my fly presentation.

Fish were biting steady for the next couple of hours (as usual for Jubilee), and then the bite went back to soft strikes with a few take downs and long line releases until 8 PM.

I found that a medium-fast overhand 8 weave retrieve worked great to get the fish's attention.

While fishing, there came up beside me / near me, NEVER acknowledged, me with his face always in the water... a Frogman snorkeling. 

 
This guy was all around the boat launch side of the lake - some of my favorite fishing spots- snorkeling with fins slapping the water surface as he was doing head stands under water. Later as I was taking a beverage break when he came out of the water, I talked with him. He was in the area from New York, and had NO idea what a rainbow trout was... "lots of fish with red strips on their side". He said there were a lot of BIGGER fish in the middle of the lake... near the bottom, -TRIPLOIDS- and as he approached them they swam away, not like the rest of the fish he watched.

Having taken my boat out of the water and getting ready to drive off the boat launch, my hay guy -Terry- came off the lake. He and friends had a full-creel catch in his boat, with one very nice TRIPLOID rainbow.
Nice fish -- it was as long as my forearm -finger tips to elbow- and in beautiful shape. This TRIPLOID looked much like a Grande Ronde River steelhead- 20" plus, but not a steelhead. Some people call a 20" rainbow trout a steelhead - they are not they same.
Terry told me that he and his son had fished Jubilee on Tuesday and caught 4 similar TRIPLOIDS. *Fish deep*

It was a very good evening of fishing / catching, a bit slow from the get-go.

Tight lines and good fishing

Reported by Dale McKain 

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Report of 4 July 2017


Hope you have had a great 4th of July. Hope you made it to the WWCC fireworks show this evening...

​Today Barbara and Dale spent the day on Jubilee Lake, catching and releasing trout, watching beautiful Bald Eagles flying by.


Being the Forth of July, amazingly there was not a crowd at the lake today.

Barbara got off to an early start using the FAB fly - some we tyed during winter, and with her first cast she had a rise to the fly.

Barbara started fishing the FAB with a dropper fly, using a full sinking fly line but soon all her hookups were on the FAB, so she took off the dropper fly. She also found that fishing the fly *deep* gave her the best results. A couple of times she came back with weeds on the fly and lost 1 fly on the bottom, but she was catching fish.

click on corner box to go FULL screen - for best picture

In the excitement to make this last minute trip to the lake Dale brought everything he needed... except his fly rod and his backup fly rod. So he spend the afternoon following Barbara around the lake, taking pictures, making videos, exploring parts of the lake he had not fished before.

Barbara, filled her creel with take home trout using the FAB fly.
Thereafter we left the lake earlier that most days to get back to Walla Walla to catch the community fireworks display. Made a nice day, and a good night light show. 






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14 August report by Dale

It was a wonderful day of REST and fishing.
The heat broke, the smoke has blown away.
Brian said the day felt like the Alaskan summers he grew up in.

I had about 50 strikes, probably 40 take-downs, with 30+ landed, and 7 invited to dinner... gave my take to Brian, for he and wife to enjoy. 
It was a very good day on the lake.



Blogmaster ~ Reporter Dale McKain

Tight lines and good fishing.

Walla² Fly Fishers

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