October - a Great time to be chasing Rainbows

It was the last week of September that club’s secretary, Dale sent out an APB-email to all members saying “Let’s Go Fishin” Anthony Lake the weekend of October 13^th or 14^th.  We had two YEA replies.
As Saturday the 13^th  approached the weather forecast made a turn for the worst at the 7100 feet elevation, so there were second thought about fishing the 13^th.

The weekend of the 13^th was cancelled due to 6" of fresh snowfall and cold, that came over the Elkhorns on Wednesday the 10^th.

Weather photo reports confirmed 6" of fresh snowfall midweek 

Our attention was given to the weekend of the 20th.
Again an APB-email was sent to all club members announcing the change of plans and asking again who wants to go fishing - Anthony Lake. Again there were two replies saying YEA, with a few others saying they could not make the 20^th trip.

Knowing there would be residual snow around the lake and that the daytime temperature would not rise above freezing until mid-morning, Brian, Dale and Dale's Buddy were in no hurry to head for the hills on the 20^th  so as to allow everything above 1000' to thaw out for the day. Many days this time of year the highway crossing over Tollgate can be frosty, rather hazardous.

Moon phase was perfect for afternoon catching

Morning temperature at Stateline - WW / M-F

Reaching the Elkhorn Range we found the weather to be beautiful as forecasted. 

The air was clear and there was still a bit of residual snow on the ground around the lake from last week's snowfall. 

It was a full sunshine day - shirt sleeve weather - with very few people on the water, and no one was wearing a coat or jacket. 

Brian was on the lake first, working the usual Honeyhole, when Dale launched his boat and with his first cast using an intermediate sink line - Fish ON! The first hook-up of the day was immediately given an invitation to dinner, a 14" rainbow - the smallest catch of the day.

The catching was off and on during the midday, but sitting on the lake covered with sunshine, was a most comfortable, enjoyable way to pass the day, very relaxing. 

This weighted BS Spl hooked all of Dale's catches for the day

In the bright part of the afternoon Dale had several strikes and two more hookups; a 16" rainbow and a 18" rainbow - Brian was getting no action fishing with a floating line and various flies.
At some point in the mid-afternoon Dale hooked up to a much larger triploid rainbow and battled the fish for several minutes. Using his 2-wt. SPL rod, Dale compared this fight to that of a Grande Ronde River steelhead for time and endurance. A battle to the end... with a long line release of probably a 20"-22" stocked triploid. This year this size fish was not uncommon at Anthony Lake, with the lake having been stocked well with large, fat triploid rainbow trout prior to July 4^th .

At this point Dale oared over to check on Brian's action, and learned he had still hooked up to no fish. 

Dale went on to catch his creel limit of 5 nice triploid rainbows for the day, while having had 3 other hookups that never made it to his net. It made for a great day of fishing ~ catching Rainbows.

With cold toes we fished the balance of the day until the sun set behind the trees and the air at 7100' elevation began to chill quickly, soon becoming as cold as the water on our feet.

Having packed the boats in the pickup, strapped them down, Dale reminded Brian that we would need to stop before getting on I-84 to tighten the tie down strap.
Coming off the mountain, it was a beautiful evening filled with golden trees all the way back to the valley with its deer ~ elk grazing alfalfa fields. Looking back at the Elkhorns after the sun had set, made a nice polishing touch to finish this day of fishing.

We covered the day's catch with cold mountain lake water to travel well, so when we returned to Milton-Freewater basecamp Dale proceeded to clean the fish caught and gave Brian two to take home for he and his wife's dinner.

The remainder were put in a brine solution to hold until they could find their way to the water-bath smoker on Sunday.

Fat triploid rainbows are almost as nice as summer steelhead, when coming off the smoker.

OH Yeah, just a reminder - when fishing high altitude lakes, be sure you make one or two stops to secure your watercraft as you descend in elevation. Failure to do so may have you finding your floatation craft being blown off of your vehicle and dragged around by the nearest FedEx semi-truck.

This boat will never float again - dammit.

Anthony Lake is a USFS fee area

Once in a Lifetime Fee for a Senior Pass
-or-
A Daily Fee for all others

Report by -
Dale McKain



Tight lines and good fishing -

Walla² Fly Fishers

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2018 Summer Fishing Reports

This evening President Dave called our meeting to order at 7:30 pm. V Pres. Tom was fishing on the Grand Ronde, Treasurer Doug was out-of-town fishing elsewhere.

We had 9 members and 1 guest in attendance.

Tonight we had a round-table discussion of summer happenings. There were fishing reports from Bennington Lake, Jubilee Lake, Indian Lake, and Anthony Lake.

Heidi reported that some of the women of the club made a very enjoying fishing outing to Jubilee Lake in early July.

With hot temperatures in the forecast in early July several men of the club made a "let's cool off" trip to Anthony Lake to chase the triploid rainbow which had been well stocked for the balance of summer fishing.

A number of individuals reported spending evenings near Walla Walla on Bennington Lake chasing trout, bass, catfish, crappies.

Judy, Tom, Heidi, Herb and Dale conducted a fly fishing seminar at Whitman College on June 27th. This project was coordinated with the Walla Walla Public School District and Washington Dept. of Education. There were participants from across the state of Washington.

It was brought to Dale’s attention that the Walla Walla Public School District would pay $250 for our club’s participation in the project. Because the Walla Walla Fly Fishers is no longer a 501c non-profit organization Dale filled out all the paperwork, including a W-9 Income form, to acquire these funds. He presented a copy of the deposited check for these funds, and ask for suggestion to donate our effort... to some non-profit causes. 

It was suggested – Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing (our club supports the Walla Walla chapter), 

the Walla Walla Christian Aid Center (local Walla Walla humanitarian aid center for the needy and homeless), 

and Casting for Recover (a woman’s breast cancer recovery organization, based on recreational fly fishing therapy). 

The funds disbursement will be decided upon by a vote of the attendees at our October’s meeting.

Dave gave an account of the veteran's outing weekend at Indian Lake on the CTUIR. There were about 80 vets associated with Project Healing Waters and Hero on the Water that show up for the weekend fishing outing in late June.

Mid-August Diane, Heidi and Dale made a mid-week fun trip to Jubilee Lake. All three reported success in "working" their flies up and down the water column.

It was also discussed having one more fishing outing in September, and it was decided to go to Jubilee Lake on the 29^th.  Heidi, Tyson, Dale said they would be interested in this trip, and Dale said he would email an APB to the membership to organize such an outing. 

Also discussed was the possibility of making another run to Anthony Lake in October before the lake started freezing over for the winter - reports of snowfall has already started coming in from 7100', even before Fall arrives.

Our guest this evening - Jim, won the door prize fly box.

Dave called the meeting adjourned at 8:30.

Our next meeting will be held at Smith's Family Restaurant on W. 9th Street in Walla Walla on Wednesday

17 October 2018. 

Respectfully submitted,
Dale McKain
Club Secretary

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Dave Stemmer – President

Tom Craig – Vice President

Doug Coe – Treasurer

Dale McKain – Secretary - Blogmaster

 
Dave Stemmer – PROJECT HEALING WATERS Coordinator

Elk on the left ~ Elk on the right ~ Elk in the road

Last week Prez Dave was discussing with Sec Dale about the possibility of making a fishing trip to Anthony Lake this week. We were ON for Tuesday.
Sec Dale put out a APB to all other club members of plans to go fishing Tuesday to Beat the Heat, and asked who wants to join us?
A couple of days later, Dave called back and said his wife reminded him of a previous obligation - can't go fishing.
By this time several members replied with Heidi and Harold saying YEA, "let's go fishing" but maybe not Tuesday. We decided on Thursday, which was to be a few degrees hotter than Tuesday.
A couple of days later, Harold emailed back saying, his wife reminded him of a previous obligation - can't go fishing.

Heidi, and Dale went fishing Thursday for R&R, and to Beat the Heat of the Columbia Basin.

The HIGH temperatures 

of the day

Leaving Walla Walla at 10:00 am it was getting hot; we made our way through Summerville and on to La Grande to pick up a bite of lunch for Dale and Buddy. The entire NE Oregon area was very smokey again this year, much like last year.

The Elkhorn Range shrouded in wildfire smoke -
view from 3,250′ elevation looking at 9,100' mountains

 We arrived at the lake at 1:00, and it was beginning to get quite warm as we put our boats on the lake and Buddy went for a short swim.

Today there was a lot of mid-week "traffic" on the lake, and with the oppressive heat wave of the past week we found the early afternoon catching to be slow. Dale took some temperature readings with his ole mercury angler's thermometer and found the water temperature at 2' deep to be 67* (too warm for trout to hold in) and the air temperature while sitting in the sun to be 88* (hot enough to order an onboard icy Gin & Tonic to be served if possible).

Trying to keep his feet DRY 

Today was Heidi's first day of fishing Anthony Lake and catching Brook Trout

After an afternoon at working the lake, Heidi came out catching 1 Brookie; Dale caught 2 Brookies and came back to shore with 2 triploid rainbows. We both had a good number of strikes at our flies, but the heat seems to be slowing the action down. While on the lake, Dale was talking with another anglers who told him that he had fished the lake regularly since the 4th of July; and for 2-3 weeks he was catching 3x maybe 4x more fish, than he has been catching since the weather turned HOT. Even though our catch rate today was slow, Dale's last hookup of the day perhaps gave him the best trout fight of his life... using his 2-wt. lake rod this one was much like fighting a summer steelhead, but the fish took flight when it's nose touched the landing net. 

The things that dreams are made of.

We were driving away from the boat launch at 8:00, for the 2.5 hour drive back to Walla².

To add a finishing touch to our day on the mountain, as we got to "the bottom of the hill" standing in the middle of the road are 3 elk - off to the left is 5 or 6 elk - off to our right is about 25 elk standing in a field of alfalfa, with at least one branch bull standing in that mix with antlers 3' long.
It was a good day - we'll be back.

Anthony Lake is a USFS fee area

Once Lifetime Fee for Seniors
-or-
A Daily Fee

Report of another day's fishing 8-9-18

Tight lines and good fishing -

Walla² Fly Fishers

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