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I made an executive decision and took today off specifically to fish somewhere different. I didn't go too wild. In fact, I pretty much just went across the street from where I do the vast majority of my fishing. I went all the way to Lake Shoecraft :) I've been wanting to go there and give the lake an honest effort, but it is so hard to leave the quality fish at Goodwin.

I launched at about 7:30 this morning. I was the only soul on the lake today. It's a somewhat tricky launch. You basically launch into the creek that runs between Goodwin and Shoecraft. It's a small run, but its still fairly shallow. I wouldn't get too exotic with what you try launching there.

I started one line with my standard Mack's Dodger, 16 inches of leader to a green Doc Spratley fly, 15 feet down. The other line I wanted to run through some Elgin Fishing God's Tooth Spoons and see if I couldn't come up with a pattern that worked. I was running these at 10 feet down. As I was cycling though the God's Tooth Spoons hunting for a pattern the fish would hit on, I got on and landed 3 on the Doc Spratley. I had gone through about 5 patterns by the time I put on the brown trout pattern. Not 30 seconds in the water and the downrigger started bouncing. This pretty much repeated itself over and over. I began to catch and release the fish as they were coming fast. One time as I was getting ready to put the line in the clip a fish actually took the spoon off the surface, which surprised my with the surface temp being 71 today.

At the end of the day I probably caught and released 12-15 fish, and kept my 5 for the smoker. Both set up worked well, but the God's Tooth was the winner by about 3 to 1, and it took me about an hour to get to that pattern. Fish were decent. all went 13-14 inches. Flesh on the fish was a decent shade of orange. Not the deep red of the Goodwin fish, but definitely a decent quality trout. Majority of the fish I was marking between 10-20 feet, so I fished 10-15 feet down. Best speed hovered around 1.5mph

Video shows the fish I took home today, 1 I released.

riverhunter

6/28/2017 9:00:52 PM

One of my favorite lakes to fish. I actually limit out pretty fast there also. Once I was returning back to the launch and I had the fly dangling next to the boat skipping the water when I heard a splash. Looked back and a fish had taken it and was hooked. You don't have to run the creek that runs through Goodwin amd shoecraft. Theres actually a launch on the southwest of the lake that also has a creek but its not the one connected to shoecraft if that makes sense.

JoshH

6/28/2017 9:09:26 PM

I was at the WDFW launch, so maybe I wasn't at the creek? I was a little turned around there :)

ElginFishing

6/28/2017 9:35:13 PM

Excellent report and video! Glad you found the magic pattern and looks like you had it set on fast action. Brown trout is one of my favorites for sure.
It's fairly common for me to burn through 5 or 6 patterns before finding what they want. Sometimes it's pattern number 12 (better late than never).
Had an outing where I went through all 12 patterns using mainly fast action then started again using slow action and found what they wanted on pattern 12 (took about 2 hrs to burn through all 24 options) but action was great from then on so all good :)

JoshH

6/28/2017 10:31:07 PM

I had a few takedowns on the Silver Shiner and the Perch pattern, but nothing that stuck. Once I found the Brown Trout pattern, fish stopped hitting the fly and only went for that. I thought about changing out the fly, but I was getting enough action on just the 1 line and I wanted to fish a bit longer but was approaching my limit. So I just left it on 1 line in case I had to keep a bleeder. Worked out great. Fished as long as I wanted, had some action, and have a full freezer now of kokanee and trout to smoke this weekend :) Using the duo-lock btw instead of a small snap swivel on the lure worked great.

Geno the Viking

6/30/2017 9:00:29 PM

Great report again. I used to fish their often with my car top boat. Can one launch a good sized boat on a trailer there?

JoshH

6/30/2017 9:08:17 PM

Maybe max 16 foot aluminium. The little creek leading from the launch to the main lake varies from 1-3 feet. Cobrar has a report on Shoecraft and I believe his boat is a 16 foot.

datbass

7/1/2017 7:18:23 PM

I launch my 16' sled there regularly. Would not suggest any bigger than that. Haven't scraped bottom heading out the channel but have to pick up my bow motor to just under the surface to keep the prop in one piece.

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