35 Amazing Minutes at Lake Lenice

March 4, 2017

Lake Lenice.  My kind of floatilla.  These are mostly coots, with a handful of bufflehead, scaups, and ruddy ducks mixed in.

March 1 is an important date for flyfishermen in Washington State, as many lowland lakes open for fishing.  Early season weather can be tricky to predict, and the fishing isn't always fast, but after a long, dark, icy, foggy winter, any time on the water is a blessing. 

This year has been unseasonably cold, however, and to my knowledge, the only March 1 lake that is ice free at this time is Lake Lenice.  This is pretty well known, and I figured that the 112 acre lake would be a flyfisherman floatilla.  Thankfully, I was wrong.  At most there were 25-30 people on the lake, which means you are never alone, but there is plenty of water to fish.  Also, since we are all in inflatables or prams and moving slowly, people are almost always friendly and courteous, and everyone is out trying to have a good time. 

As icing on the cake, the fishing was pretty darn good!  As usual, I started trolling to my spot dragging a double leech rig, and within the first ten minutes I was on the board with a spunky 12-15 inch rainbow (I don't remember exactly how big he was, but he was in the cookie-cutter range!).

I don't have the pictures in order, but let's pretend this was the first fish...

Over the next half hour I caught two more on the leech.  I tried anchoring up with a chironomid/balanced leech combo and caught a couple more before trolling over to find a new spot.  Many of my favorite spots were taken, but I don't think "spots" make too much of a difference on Lenice - the fish are where you find them.  Boy did I find them. 

I trolled into a depth that looked good, about 8 feet, and caught a fish.  I decided to anchor up and use the indicator rod.  For the next 35 minutes the fishing was lights out.  I would cast out my line, and within 40 seconds after landing, my indicator would tank.  Most of the time it was 20 seconds.  In 35 minutes I caught 13 fish, and my indicator was never on the water for more than 40 seconds - it was amazing.  It was possibly the best half hour of fishing of my life!  Most of the fish were cookie cutters, with one healthy 18" mixed in. Unfortunately, he was camera shy!

Some of the fish I caught. I didn't take pictures of all of them - that would take too much time - and they are mostly cookie cutters anyway.  Healthy cookie cutters!

Eventually the bite slowed down, but I still caught a handful more fish in the area.  When all was said and done, in two hours I caught 21 fish anchored in one location.  That isn't bad!  I trolled some more, and caught a few more fish for a grand total of 30 for the day. 

Last fish of the day.

In the end it was a great day.  Although the lake was busy, the fishing was very productive.  There was lots of wildlife - I saw huge flocks of lesser sandhill cranes, elk, fighter jets, herons, scaups, bufflehead, mallards, ruddy ducks, heard an owl, and one other fishermen said he had a beaver attack his strike indicator - crazy!  The best thing about today?  Hopefully it is foreshadowing what lies ahead - bring on Spring!!

A small part of the duck/coot floatilla, with more ducks visible.  When the entire floatilla moves around the lake gets loud!