Previous Next

Have been intrigued by the Fall fishing at Beaver Lake for quite some time. It bothers me a great deal that the WDFW is obviously pandering to the wealthy and the politicians by targeting waters near exclusive housing areas (vis. a vis. Issaquah and Battleground/Vancouver) for their Fall plants. By a huge margin, the WDFW receives its greatest revenue through license fees from the greater Everett/Seattle/Tacoma area, and yet only two lakes north of Tacoma (Goodwin and Beaver) receive Fall plants (out of about 45 lakes). Strange!!! Anyway... had never fished Beaver before. I do recall that as a child my family traveled to Beaver Lake on several occasions to attend church picnics. Last stocking of Beaver occurred on October 20th, and I figured that pressure would be light on a Monday, nearly a month later. Arrived at Beaver Lake Park at about 6:30 AM (after more than an hour on the road) only to discover that the Park was gated and closed. Waited patiently until a park ranger arrived to open the gate at about 7:00 Am... he said they "shoot for 7:00" (I could have stayed in bed for an additional half hour of "beauty sleep"). I unloaded my gear in a torrential downpour and made my way to the lake... lines in the water by 7:20. Temp at the outset was 51 degrees, and water temp was 51 degrees on my thermometer at about ten feet from the shoreline. Gauging by how long it took for my weight to hit the bottom, I would guess I was fishing in about 10' depth at the end of my cast from the shoreline. Having no idea how to target the Rainbows at Beaver, I began with fl. orange Power Eggs on one rig (4' leader) and fished night crawlers under a float on the other. By 8:00 the rain had stopped, and the surface of the lake was a flat calm. Saw no fish activity on the surface... was a bit discouraged when I observed two Cormorants land across the lake from me, spend about twenty minutes fishing, then left the lake. If they could find no reason to fish Beaver today, what did that mean for me? Over the next three hours I tried about everything in my bait box... all colors of PE, some Power Dough, worms on the bottom, shrimp meat under a float, on the bottom... Nada! I tried various leader lengths, nothing worked. About 11:00 I tried fishing with a Power Bait product called "Mice Tails"... have used them before with varying amount of success. I put one on (white head, pink tail) with one fl. orange PE, on a 3' leader. Five minutes after casting the bait out, a tremendous hit, nearly jerked my rod off its support and into the lake. I grabbed the rod, set the hook and began to reel... line peeling off the reel and several long runs and violent headshakes before I was able to make headway and close the distance to the shoreline. Somewhere between twenty and thirty feet out, the line snagged on something and I could not not gain more line, though I could still feel the fish thrashing around on the other end. Somehow the line finally came free, but the fish was gone. Okay, there are still fish to be caught here! During the next hour, the weather became violent. Powerful winds and gusts and intermittent rain squalls... a challenge to keep fishing, but of course I did! By 2:00 the sky had become very dark, so I tried a "Mice Tail" in fl, orange, with a white head... about ten minutes later the "bow" that the wind was placing in my line suddenly straightened out and as I grabbed the rod, the tip bent to the water and I was into a pig of a fish. With the wind gusting over 30 mph, and heavy rain blasting the surface of my glasses, it was all I could do stand upright at the shoreline and try to land this fish. Several long and dogged runs and lot of headshakes, it took me some time to get it to the shore... once its belly scraped the gravel at the beach, the fish was renewed in its energy and headed out with renewed vigor. I finally was able to bring it to the net and was thrilled to find it to be a gorgeous 17" thick bodied Rainbow buck in all its spawning glory. Very happy to have connected with a Beaver Lake beauty! Fought the elements for a couple more hours... how great to have my rain suit and six layers to keep my warm. Left the lake at 4:00 PM, dreading the two and a half hour drive home through Seattle traffic!

Saw one other fisherman during the morning, fished for an hour off the WDFW launch across the lake and left with nothing. About 1:00, a gentleman with two sons began to fish off the point which was on my far right. They had seen me land my fish, so they came over to see what I was doing, shared what I was using, and they returned to the point. About an hour later I saw the fisherman land a Rainbow, somewhat smaller than mine. That was the only other fish taken.
Enjoyed my trip to Beaver Lake today. I gave the outing a "3" even though I spent the entire day fishing but only caught one fish... but it was a "doozy". Beaver is to receive two more Fall plants, I suppose the pressure will be great in and around those plants... but I might be found in the mix trying for more Beaver Lake "doozies". PTL!

P.S. Just a reminder born of personal experience... be sure to protect your fishing gear. I had been in the habit of storing most of my tackle in the rear of my Blazer, since I use that vehicle almost exclusively for my fishing trips. Being an older vehicle, the power lock doesn't always work, especially with the tailgate. A couple of weeks ago someone prowled the Blazer, parked only several feet outside our door, taking a number of things, including my tackle bag holding nearly fifty years' accumulation of lures, tools and so much more. Be safe... there are persons out there who see your sporting gear as only a few bucks to buy a high with.

Mike Carey

11/14/2017 7:10:58 PM

bummer about your gear. A lot of irreplaceable items I'm sure.

Stansjoy

11/14/2017 8:22:44 PM

Thanks Mike... Yeah, gear I have had since my sons were young. Hoped to pass it on to them and my grandsons. Oh well, it is after all, just "stuff". Appreciate all you have done through the years to make NFR what it is today. Lots of hard work... well worth it to all us fishing junkies who gain important info through the sharing. God Bless!

tmanh2o

11/14/2017 8:50:44 PM

Looks like a spawning Cutthroat or soon to be. I learned a long time ago the hard way too. Now I never leave anything in my car overnight. That's tough Stan especially to happen to guy like yourself. I enjoy your reports too.

Stansjoy

11/15/2017 6:32:27 AM

tmanh2o & tyee33... Thank you for your comments... tmanh2o... I never even considered that the fish was a Cutt... thinking Rainbow from the recent plants, but after your comment, looked more closely... mandible definitely continues past the eye! That's the way I learned long ago to differentiate between a Rainbow and a Cutthroat. Makes me think!?

Anonymous

11/15/2017 6:19:03 AM

Nice trout Stanjoy! Yes with all the lakes we have in the North Sound area, it is a mystery why South West Washington gets the majority of the quality fall trout plants. With all the salmon opportunity lost here you sure would think WDFW would do things different vs. giving SW the special treatment.

HULI_ISDA

11/15/2017 7:05:44 AM

So when are you gonna right a book about your fishing adventure Stan? Your report is always a good read. I also had a share on broken into vehicle. Last year went squidding in Seattle the famous "wheel" the night we finally done Christmas shopping for the whole family and forgot to unload the SUV. So somebody decided to break into our car while we out squidding and took all shoppings and my fishing gears. They cleaned us out worth over $1000+. Sorry to hear about your gear I feel your pain, as most of our Christmas shopping puck by the kids for the family. Sucks..but it's a reality people don't care. Be safe always. GB.

Stansjoy

11/16/2017 2:43:37 PM

HULI_ISDA... Great to hear from you, been a while since last time I saw you. So sorry about your bad experience last year. I trust this will be a blessed Holiday time to put those memories into the far distant past. Blessings on you and your family (a son and a daughter as I remember?). Hope to see you on one of our lakes this Spring. PTL!

mikep

11/15/2017 8:06:33 AM

Stansjoy wrote: "By a huge margin, the WDFW receives its greatest revenue through license fees from the greater Everett/Seattle/Tacoma area, and yet only 2 lakes north of Tacoma (Goodwin and Beaver) receive Fall plants (out of about 45 lakes). Strange!"
Note that the old Washington State Dept of Game priority was sports fishing and hunting and the Dept of Game Commission members were focused on sports fishing and hunting. The present WDFW priorities appear to be significantly impacted by non-sports fishing and hunting interests ranging from commercial fishing, legislative districts, etc. Below is some history:
1987 - Legislature and Governor Booth Gardner changed Dept of Game, with a Commission-appointed director, to Dept of Wildlife with a Director appointed by the Governor.
1994 – Washington State Legislature and Governor Mike Lowry merged the Dept of Wildlife and Dept of Fisheries, creating Dept of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). WDFW has a 9-member Commission and the WDFW Director is appointed by the Commission.
Some years ago a WDFW Director presented a report to the Commission (broadcast on TVW) and the Director said WDFW overestimated the salmon run returns and implied this was done to increase the commercial fishing allowed catch but when the actual salmon run was lower, then the rivers would be closed to sports fishing (sound familiar?). If you watch the Outdoor GPS TV program you hear about how the Columbia river Oregon-Washington commercial fishing has impacted the salmon fishing using gill nets which were supposed to be phased out.
There was a bill submitted to the Wash State Legislature regarding putting a higher priority on sports fishing and this bill had and I think still has lots of support but the Legislative Committee chair (from the Aberdeen Hoqium area) will not allow this bill to be heard in the Legislative Committee which blocks this bill from being voted on by the entire House and Senate. On the NW Wild Country TV program, this State Legislature member said that he favored commercial fishing and did not want sports fishing to be favored even though sports fishing contributed much more $ to Wash State than Commercial fishing. Note that the information about how much commercial fishing license money is provided to WDFW is difficult to find. I was assigned to the Wash State Legislature 1988-1992 and a UW college student attempted to do a report about Wash State reduced taxes to industries which claimed environmental benefits on the industry state tax returns and the Wash State Dept of Revenue refused to give the information to the college student. I was told by State Senator Chair of Senate Ways and Means that she could not get much information about tax and budge t matters because the State considered the information "confidential".
With regards to fishing, note that WDFW recently (past year) removed the trout limit of 2 trout over 15" in some lakes (ie now the trout limit is 5 trout with no size limit) and note that these lakes are near Olympia where many of the Wash State Government employees live.

Anonymous

11/15/2017 11:52:42 AM

Geez?? Fish Politics at it's finest! But so bassackwards for the license-tax paying sportsman..

The Quadfather

11/15/2017 1:33:50 PM

Dangs, I need a Tylenol after reading that.

Stansjoy

11/16/2017 2:37:56 PM

mikep... Thank you for being so passionate... to care so much that you would take the time to write your comment. It's a shame that our politicians care so little about the people they are sworn to represent. Its all about dollars, power and greed... and we pay the bills! I try to avoid thinking about all that stuff, just focus on being on the lake or the stream. Sometimes, however, even I have to vomit up a bit of vitriol. Agree with The Quadfater, I need a Tylenol! Have a great Thanksgiving Mike! PTL!

Heatherlyfish

11/17/2017 10:38:00 PM

They put the triploid in early this year. I read online. This fish might be one of them. Kind of a mean thing to do putting in the big fish in Oct over Nov. I am trying this lake tomorrow cause my son is itching to fish. Just hoping for a little non rain time. Boo on that person who stole your gear. So wrong.

Leave a Comment:

Login

Flag

×

Why is this comment inappropriate?

Close Submit

Delete this comment? Provide reason.

No Yes

Edit

×

Cancel Save