Fishing reports

Squalicum Lake, Whatcom County

3 Cutthroat trout, 6 – 10” range.

Partial sun

I packed my float tube and fly rod out to one of Whatcom Counties best fly fishing only lakes. Beautiful day on the lake but the trout were scarce. I managed a few hits on an olive woolly bugger but only managed to land three Cutthroat trout after switching to an Idaho Ducks Tail pattern.  One trout was about 6” and the other two were about 10”. I released all three unharmed. I caught the three fish at the northern most part of the lake where it is shallow and weedy. The very small ones (6” range) seemed to be feeding on the surface close in to the shallows while the larger fish were holding in deeper water.

According to the WDFW they should be planting the Triploids in Squalicum Lake this month which should make for some exciting action.

Silver Lake, Whatcom County

13 Rainbow trout caught and released between the two of us all in the 12-14” range. Overcast day, rain sprinkles, and a slight wind.

Sam and I fly fished Silver lake from a small row boat from about Noon to 4 today and together did quite well. Sam started off with a hand tied olive woolly bugger and I started with a black woolly bugger.  Right off the bat I consistently hooked and lost 5 fish in a row. After checking, sharpening, and re-checking my hook I switched to an olive body woolly bugger with a black tail and hackle and a bead head. This produced 4 fish for me which I landed and released.

Sam meanwhile, brought a total of 9 fish to the boat which were all released unharmed.

Sam was using a floating fly line with two small splitshot weights while I used an intermediate sinking tip.

We had the most luck while varying out trolling retrieve. Instead of just setting the trolling motor and pointing the boat in a straight line varied the speed and weaved in a curvy line. The most strikes we got were when we actually turned off the trolling motor and let the boat drift for 30 seconds or so. It seemed that almost every time we killed the motor one of our rods would snap down with a fierce strike.

All the fish we caught were in the 12-14” range. We thought about keeping a few of them to throw in the smoker but in the end decided that they were too small to be worth the effort.