I've always dreamed of fishing Omak Lake. A little over a week ago due to poor weather and client cancellations I suddenly had a two day window with no obligations. On a whim I decided to make the long 7 hour drive from sw. Washington to the north central region of the state to fish this beautiful aquamarine gem home to the state's most impressive Lahontan Cutthroat Trout fishery.

After picking up a Colville tribal fishing license in the town of Omak I headed out towards the lake and was disappointed to discover that only the northern end of the lake was reachable due to a landslide on Omak Lake Rd. At Nicholson Beach I prepped my kayak and launched and started trolling parallel to the shore in about 20' of water. I started dropping back a small herring dodge tailed with a Brad's Mini-Cut Plug "Seahawk" pattern. While dropping the gear back a fish slammed the rod and I landed a big 18" Cutthroat! Wow! This was going to be a good day.

I continued to troll south along the west shore hooking fish consistently every 5-10 minutes with occasional doubles. I ran Maglip 2.5, Needlefish, and Mini Cutplugs but the cutplugs were the most consistent producers. Troll speeds varied from 1.6 to 2.7 mph with my gear about 55' behind the boat with 1 oz of weight. The wind began to pick up heavily in the late afternoon so I tucked into a cove and fished a fly rod for a while catching a handful of 16-18" trout. With the wind blowing heavy and my kayak mirage drive in need of some minors repairs I trolled back north to the ramp catching several more fish along the way. I easily landed 25 fish with most falling in the 16-18" range and several over 20" and that was fishing in for just a few hours in the afternoon in less than ideal conditions. I was super pumped to return the next day.

The next morning I returned flushing a large Cinnamon Bear on the way out. I followed the same route as the previous day and experienced similar if not better results hooking a dozen or more doubles with in just a couple hours. It had been a little choppy in the morning but the wind died as the day progressed and I decided to do some additional fly fishing in the coves. Within minutes of dropping the fly in the water I had a fish on and over the next 1.5 hours landed a dozen fish from 14-19" on my fly rod. It was just amazing. As the afternoon progressed and a 7 hour drive home loomed on the horizon I returned to the ramp. The bite had died off by 1 PM and I was only catching a fish every 15 minutes or so.

In total I landed well over 70 fish for the two half-days of fishing. These fish are remarkably aggressive, variable in coloration, and of substantial size. In short Omak Lake lived up to the amazing reputation that it has as a trophy trout fishing lake. If you have not fished it...you should.