Oregon’s Cascade lakes approaching ice-off for opener

Ice-free Central Oregon mountain lakes will attract anglers on opening day

By Larry Ellis / Fish Frontiers contributor

Imagine yourself with a 20-pound Mackinaw on the end of your line, making long runs in gin-clear water with picturesque mountains rising in the background. Now picture yourself fighting native rainbow trout in excess of 24-inches. How about battling a giant German brown in the 20-pound class, or easing tonight’s dinner into the net: a fat 18-inch kokanee.

Most anglers save up for such vacations their entire lives to gain access to such privileged waterbodies in Canada, the Yukon or Alaska, many of which are only accessible by float planes or guides running expensive lodges.

Believe it or not, you can drive to many of these places in Oregon by automobile, and when the opening day of trout season rolls around on April 26, several lakes in the central Oregon Cascade Mountains will be opening their doors.

A brutally long winter has prevented gaining access to many of these lakes because they are either frozen over, or the entrances are piled high with 4 feet of snow pack.

But there are a handful of reservoirs that are ice-free where anglers will be hoping for stringers of succulent kokanee and rainbow trout, or even catching that wall-hanger that will be lit up over their living room mantle.

Odell Lake
One such waterbody is 4,000-surface acre Odell Lake. Last year, the screens on many fish-finders were blacked out from 10 to 70 feet, but not because their electronics needed fixing, or even adjusting. It was because of the vast amount of kokanee that were found in the lake.

In fact, the schools of kokanee were so thick, when fall came, the inlets and perimeter of Odell ran blood-red with the land-locked sockeye’s carcasses.

This year, anglers who were pre-hunting for their prized kokes have found similar blackouts on their finders, only to a lesser degree. That could mean that this year’s kokanee could be larger than last season’s 9- to 10-inch average.

If this season’s kokanee are over 12-inches long, Odell’s very liberal 25-fish bag will be a welcome addition to many angler’s tables, smokers and freezers.

Most of the action will be taking place at the west end of the lake in front of Shelter Cove. In this section, the lake is literally sheltered from the winds that are plagued at the east end of the lake.

You will want to start your koke hunt at first legal light. This is the magic hour, when many anglers can limit out in an hour or two, clean their catch, and then be sipping a hot cup of coffee back at the lodge by 9 or 10 a.m.

The early hours of the morning usually call for jigging 25 gram to 1-ounce Nordic Jigs or Kastmasters in bright red fluorescent. When it comes to kokanee, the brightest colors are your bets.

You’ll want to tag the hooks of your jigs with at least one piece of Pautzke’s Fire Corn or Gulp! Corn. In the absence of these products, ordinary white corn will do the job, because white corn is more digestible than the yellow stuff.

Some anglers even tip their lures with maggots and get fantastic results.

You will be jigging fairly close to the surface in the beginning of the year and at low light. After a few hours, the kokanee start sounding because of their extremely light-sensitive eyes, so as the day grows longer, either jig deeper or start trolling for them.

Most people will be using small bright-colored dodgers or flashers, with a hot pink spinner trailing behind it. Mack’s Kokanee Pro Wedding Ring spinners have two hooks on the back. If one piece of corn doesn’t nail ‘em, the other will.

Because of a kokanee’s paper-soft mouth, using a snubber is a personal preference. If you’re using a rod with a fast tip, then by all means go with a snubber. If you’re using a noodle stick, then the forgiveness of the more limber parabolic blank acts similarly to a snubber.

Odell is home to the Oregon state record 40-pound, 8-ounce Mackinaw, also referred to as a lake trout, and this is prime time to try catching of these gigantic char.

The methodology is simple: find the kokanee and the Macks won’t be too far behind. In Odell, the lakers don’t usually start going on the bite until early afternoon.

You’ll want to be looking for big arches or lines on your screen in depths between 120 and 150 feet that follow one of the many break lines along the shelves at Odell. The lakers will be cruising these areas in search of those kokanee schools that have dispersed later in the day.

A good strategy is to start at the east end of the lake near Chinquapin Point and follow the break lines along rocky shoals. You will be meandering in and out from shore, but will be staying more on the north side of the lake. With a little bit of luck, you will have tied into one of these big bruisers on your way to Princess Creek.

You will definitely need a downrigger with downrigger balls between 15 and 20 pounds. Trailing behind the downrigger, close to the bottom you can use an assortment of lures. Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows (the large floating kind), J-Plugs, AC-Plugs, Bombers, Rebels, Rapalas, swimbaits and kokanee belly-wrapped FlatFish or Kwikfish are also great choices.

Think “baitfish” when choosing your lure colors. To a laker, a baitfish is usually a 10-inch kokanee, so choosing a plug that resembles a koke or a rainbow trout is critical.

There are also native rainbow trout up to 24-inches that thrive in Odell. You best bets are to try fishing the bays above and below Chinquapin Point. Many anglers will just wind-drift using a nightcrawler on the bottom.

Others like to troll weighted fly lines between 10 and 20 feet deep using streamers, muddlers or bead heads. The trout will also take rainbow-colored PowerBait Nuggets used on a sliding sinker. Pautzke’s Green Label Balls O’ Fire are also excellent baits when used underneath a slip bobber. One great trick is popping one the Pautzke eggs and smearing the juice either on a night crawler or on a PowerBait nugget.

North and South Twin
Joie Frazee, owner of Twin Lakes Lodge (541-382-6432; www.twinlakesresortoregon.com) has been on top of the ice-melting saga of the Oregon Cascades for the last 2 months.

“Everything north of road 42 in my area will be open,” says Frazee. “Basically we have North Twin, South Twin Campground, West South Twin Campground and Gull Point at Wickiup. All sides are plowed at Gull Point.”

That’s great news for anglers aching to fill their stringers full of rainbow trout averaging between 12- and 16-inches or even greater at South Twin Lake.

South Twin is one of the easiest lakes to fish and is considered a real family oriented lake. South Twin has a nearly circular shape with all of the shoreline accessible by bank anglers.

Because of the tremendous bug hatches that occur on South Twin, it grows very large trout in a rapid period of time. These huge holdovers should be on the bite on opening day.

Anglers are welcome to rent some of the new boats which Frazee has recently equipped the lodge with.

No motors are allowed on South Twin. But the boats come in very handy for stealthy row/trollers or for bait fishermen.

The reason for wanting to use a boat at South Twin is because when Wickiup was formed, the water backed up into the timber surrounding the lake, causing a few snags with bank fishermen. Being in a boat gets you away from the flooded timber and allows you to find hot spots on the edges of thawing ice.

Nevertheless, bank fishermen can do quite well at South Twin using inflated night crawlers, floating PowerBait off the bottom or just using a few Balls O’ Fire eggs underneath a slip bobber.

Since these fish have had nothing to eat from the outside world all winter, they should have tremendous appetites and should whack any spoon or spinner that comes their way. Good examples of spoons are Little Cleos, Pixee Spoons, Krocodiles, Kastmasters and Super Dupers. Hot spinners are Rooster Tails, Panther Martins, Mepps and Blue Foxes.

Wickiup Reservoir
“Wickiup is completely clear of ice,” says an exuberant Frazee.

At 10,000-surface acres, that’s great news for trophy kokanee hunters and brown baggers. One of California’s and Oregon’s foremost authorities on kokanee and trout resides close to Wickiup during the opener.

“Wickiup’s one of my favorite lakes for browns,” says Gary Miralles, owner and lure designer from Shasta Tackle (530-275-2278; shastatackle.com).

Miralles says that rip/trolling is one of the most effective methods for bagging a brown at Wickiup. He top-lines his lures at least 200 feet behind the boat and works in and out of the points close to shore.

One of the most common mistakes anglers make is running over a point. Since trout like to hang around points, running over one with your boat is one sure-fire way to spook the fish for the rest of the day.

Miralles uses another strategy when working points. He puts his rods in rod holders so they are nearly straight up and then parallels one side of the point, keeping enough distance away from the side of the point not to spook the fish. He will keep following the point about 100 feet beyond the point and then sharply cuts back 180-degrees to parallel the other side of the point.

With the rod positioned in the holder this way, this maneuver causes the lure to temporarily stall. When his boat follows the other side of the point and picks up the slack, the lure drags across the point, where fish will be waiting for their next meal, unaware of the presence of the boat.

“That brings your lure across the point without them seeing your boat,” says Miralles.

Miralles also recommends ripping your baits from time to time, especially when they are going over the points. This rip/trolling technique works great for German browns.

Great lures for long-lining and rip/trolling are large Yo-Zuri Crystal minnows, Matrix Kazi Minnows, Bombers, Rapalas, Rebels and swimbaits, all in a rainbow-trout color.

The best time to bag a brownie is in the magic hour, the first and last hour of legal light.

Miralles says that Wickiup is also a great lake to catch very large kokanee. Since Wick does not have the reputation for kicking out copious quantities of kokes, the fish have a tendency of growing larger, and often approach lengths in the upper teens.

For kokanee, concentrate away from structure in open water, trolling Koke-A-Nuts behind a brightly colored Sling Blade Dodger. Miralles uses very short leaders when using these killer koke attractants, leaders as short as 18 inches. The action of the Sling Blade imparts a side-to-side action that drives kokanee wild.

Diamond Lake
Diamond Lake is considered the number one family trout destination of Oregon. This year, anglers can expect another massive trout stocking, with between 70,000 and 80,000 trout being liberated into the waterbody.

A lot of these fish are contract fish, which means that many will be in excess of 12 inches long, with many trophy trout being planted as well.

To that 80,000 fish, add another 100,000 fingerlings that grew to 11 inches last November. They should be foot-long lunklers by now. In addition, there were several thousand Eagle Lake ‘bows planted in the lake toward the end of the season.

Furthermore, not all of last year’s 80,000 trout were caught. You can expect a few fish stories being muttered around the campfire this year. Those trout that were 6 pounds last year? They could easily be between 8 and 10 pounds by the opener.

The only problem about opening day at Diamond (and it’s not really a problem) is that the lake is still frozen over. Rick Rockholt of Diamond Lake Resort (800-733-7593; www.diamondlake.net) says that almost everyone will be ice fishing on opening day, but please check on the web page to keep apprized of current weather conditions.

Rockholt emphasizes safety above all things when ice fishing. Although the lake appears to be quite solid, the longer hours of daylight has an effect on the internal properties of the ice. What is called “light transparency” can cause ice to go rotten very quickly.

If you do decide to ice fish, Rockholt advises taking a car-topper or an inflatable raft out on the ice. Number one, you will be inside the boat, keeping your feet from getting cold. Secondly, being inside the boat is a precaution just in case the ice should crack.

Rockholt says that in Oregon, you are not permitted to fish through a manmade hole larger than 8 inches, so when drilling your ice-hole, make sure the diameter of the auger is less than 8 inches.

The resort rents augers for drilling holes in the ice, but they will not drill them for you because of liability issues. Therefore, if you decide to go the ice-fishing route, please only do so with a seasoned veteran who has a few years of ice fishing under his belt.

Since these trout have had nothing to eat all winter, they will be hungry and gobbling up your offerings as fast as you can get them down to the bottom.

This is one time when PowerBait might not be the best choice. Because baits like this float, they will have a tendency of tangling up your line.

Instead, the old tried-and-true Velveeta Cheese method should be killer for trout, as well as night crawlers, since both of these baits sink rather than float.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) does not endorse ice fishing, even though it is legal to do so, and says it is a do-at-your-own-risk situation. ODFW will be posting signs stating so around the lake.

To be on the safe side, call the marina at Diamond Lake or look at their Web site at www.diamondlake.net, which will be posting up-to-the-minute ice conditions as well as photographs of the lake. Click on “Fishing Conditions” and that should take you to recent photos of the lake.

ODFW will not plant the 80,000 fish until ice-out occurs.
--FF