Last Day of 2016 on Lake Lenice, Washington

November 19, 2016

The Sun Lowering on Lake Lenice.  Farewell until March!

As Cheryl and the kids are out of town, I had the day free.  The forecast did not look good, and I did not have enough time to prepare to make a long drive, so again, I opted to stay close to home.  I decided to fish what has become my home water, Lake Lenice, one last time before it closes for the season at the end of the month.

There was only one person at the lake when I got there, and as I got my gear ready I watched him catch two fish.  I was thinking that this could be good!  Apparently he hit one of the only flurries of the day, however, as I found the fishing to be quite slow.  Trolling and casting a leech for over an hour yielded only one small fish, so I moved to the main lake reef, where there were still weeds in a depth of only 5-6 feet.  Fishing the same flies (literally) that I had used at Quail, I set them up shallow, only 3-5 feet under my indicator, and enjoyed a snack while waiting for my indicator to go down.  Over the next hour and a half or so, I would get a strike every 15-20 minutes.  I managed to land three or four of those fish, and I was pleasantly surprised at their nice size (15-17").  People had been complaining of the lack of size, but that was not the case for me today.

Healthy 17" caught just 2 ft under the surface on the chionomid.  The only fish on the chiro all day.

Another very healthy, hard fighting trout.  This one fell for the balanced leech just off the bottom in 5-6 ft of water.

Eventually things slowed down, and I explored for a while, but the fishing remained terribly slow, and I only added a couple more, smaller fish.  Finally I needed stretch my leg and take care of some needs, so I went to one of the only places you can actually get out of your boat on the shore. While standing on the island stretching I noticed some fish cruising just of the shore in front of me.  There is a point on the island where the water drops off pretty quickly, and I decided to fish from shore.  I used my indicator rod and set it up about 5 feet deep (I was assuming the water was 6-10 feet deep).

As is so often the case, I had come prepared with a float tube, two fly rods, a fish finder, etc, and the best fishing of the day was standing on shore.  Go figure!  In the next half hour I caught four very healthy fish and missed a couple more.  Then, like a light switch, they turned off.

Biggest fish of the day - he was bigger, especially heavier, than this photo makes him look.  They get hard to photograph at this size!  He was pushing 18".

Bendo!  Sure, I was a little under-gunned with the 3 wt., but it sure is fun!

The end result of the previous picture.  Note the balanced leech in his upper jaw!

In the end it was a pretty slow day at Lake Lenice, with only a dozen fish over the course of about six hours.  At least the size was good.  As is so often the case, the fishing was only part of the experience though.  Luckily the weathermen were way off, and there was no wind to speak of and only a little rain.  Driving to the lake I passed over 200 elk, including three beautiful bulls, in least likely elk habitat in the world.  I had groups of two and three swans fly by, I was constantly being buzzed by crazed flocks of bufflehead, and I even saw a covey of 5 pheasants take to the air.  I don't see those sort of things at my office.  

Next week I'm making an extremely quick trip to Utah, so I'll probably get a few hours of fishing in there - we'll see!