Early Autumn Stillwater fishing

Heading for Jubilee Lake - on Weston Mountain overlooking the Walla Walla River Valley

At Wednesday's meeting, Dale suggested we make a club outing to Jubilee Lake on Saturday. Several people said they would like to do that, some said they would try to join us. A group of women said they would be heading for the lake early, a few other were heading that way later in the morning.

Most of the past week the Walla Walla River Valley had a nice freshet of rain, the Blue Mountains had snow... so Fall is in the air in the PNW.

Arriving at the lake around noon Saturday, Dale found that Barbara, Heidi, and Debbie had been fishing most of the morning and were about to take a lunch break. Barbara reported that she had caught a few fish and so far kept one; Heidi reported she had caught her FIRST two stillwater trout on a fly that she had tied (much like a sparsely tied BS Special), and Debbie reported no hookups. Heidi was a very happy fly fisher today. The ladies reported that Robin and Harold had just got to the lake, and were fishing on the other side. Early afternoon, these three lady fishers started packing up their gear to head home, for their evening engagements.

The day was mostly cloudy, with scatter showers and cool. Much like Brian had told Dale the last time we were on Jubilee Lake "this reminds me of my days growing up in Alaska".

Dale got his Buddy settled in, next to the lake, got his boat and gear together and shoved off.

With a light rain falling Dale checked the air temperature at found it to be 47°F, and checking the water surface temperature found it to be 54°F. Perfect conditions for finding fish to be putting on the Fall feedbag. By the time Dale saw Barbara and Heidi leaving the lakeside parking lot, he had caught two trout. Dale was using a full sink line and his favorite go-to-fly... the BS Special.

As the rain came and went during the afternoon, Dale kept catching trout; most were 10"-12" in size and a few were 5". After a couple of hours of catching; Robin, Harold, and Dale got close enough on the lake to talk with each other and Dale asked, how their catching was going. They reported that it was not. At this point in time Dale had caught 25-30 trout, so he inquired what Robin and Harold were fishing with and what kind of presentation they were making with their fly? We came along side each other, Dale told them how he was presenting his fly and gave them two BS Specials, and the five trout he had creeled. As Dale pulled away, he caught another fish. Catching today was fun.

Shortly thereafter Dale noticed that Robin had a fish-on, and shortly after that Harold had a fish-on. Catching today was fun.
We continued catching fish as the clouds began to breakup and the sun appeared. The sun really felt warm after an afternoon of clouds and drizzle.

With the ease and number of trout being caught, Dale reports that he changed his presentation to see if there would be a difference in hookups.

Elk Horn Lake Special

He changed his rigging from a full fast sink line with the
BS Special; to using a stillwater intermediate sink line using a BS Special and a Elk Horn Lakes Special for a dropper.
After about 30 minutes of fishing with the intermediate sink line and rigging, he went back to the fast sink and just the BS Special.

Elk Horn Lake Special ~ BS Special

As the sun sank slowly in the west, behind the shoreline trees we tallied up our catch for the afternoon. Robin and Harold now had 10 creeled and Dale had 2.

We had a lot of fun with Catch & Releasing many more fish.

Dale said he had probably caught 45-50 trout, again most being 10"-12". He did find that fishing a full sink line with a BS Special caught larger fish, than when he switched to a stillwater intermediate sink line using a BS Special.

This made for another wonderful day of fishing / catching in the stillwaters of the Blue Mountains.

As Dale was packing up his gear, an elk hunter drove up to the boat launch to see what this lake looked like. He had been in elk-camp the past 20-days, a couple of miles from the lake and proceeded to tell Dale there had been a lot of snow this past week on his camp. Said he woke up one morning to find his camp's kitchen tarp covering the ground with 8" of snow covering it.
Winter is heading this way.

October can be, usually is, the best time of the year for catching; as fish are putting on the feedbag in prep for the onset of winter.

Hope you will be able to make it out with us on our next catching trip.

Tight lines and good fishing,
a report by Dale McKain

Walla² Fly Fishers

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