Feels like winter is around the corner....

The Thumb and I headed over to Sprague to have a look-see at this supposedly fantastic stocker fishery. Overall a good day, but read on, dear fisher-friends, as you need to bear a couple things in mind for your trip.

Firstly, DO NOT LAUNCH AT THE RESORT ON THE NORTH END OF THE LAKE.

We headed out in El Thumberino's Sylvan 16' fish machine. Small and fishable for small lakes, its a good little boat. Bopped down to the lake through town, and saw the sign where the road forks, with the southern resort 6 miles away (the one you can see from the freeway) and the other one 2 miles away. Shorter drive means sooner fishing, we say. Get down to the launch, get the boat prepped, and head down to put her in the water. Its a little low right now, so we eyeball the ramp. The $7 launch....

There is a dropoff about 10 feet from the waterline (not even a 14' boat trailer could stay above the dropoff) which caused the people before us to ground out the framerails on their trailer. We get all dialed to launch, and the same thing happens. Hitting frames of trailers on the launch before the boat slides off means its going to be UGLY getting the boat out.

Head out, lines wet in 15 minutes after getting a little fuel issue worked out. Trolling a luhrs cowbell setup on my side trailing a small trout spinner, and The Thumb rigged up a rip'n minnow to drag while he gets his fly trolling setup ready. Fish #1 whacks the little minnow, and we boat our first rainbow. Another few minutes pass with our new friend in the livewell when the minnow gets whacked again! Its a little feller at 10", so we shake him off, as its pretty hot right now. I change up to a rip myself, and now both poles are getting strikes every 20 minutes to a half hour. Some stick, some don't.

The Thumb hooks up to a runner, sets the hook, and starts fighting away behind the canvas on his boat. With the rod tip up high, his fish does and incredible 4' leap straight up, flashing chrome at us, which drowned out my view of the lure he spit in the air that's rapidly hurtling my way.... I duck, it flies by, and the line wraps around BOTH of our heads. Beautiful trickbar action....

There is a big lull midday after we have 4 in the boat, 1 of mine and 4 of his (shoulda switched lures sooner). An hour or better midafternoon and its dead. Decide to head for the launch and scoot past the point on the NW end by the launch and I hook up #2, which puts 3 big leaps in the air and an admirable fight.

4 hours, 5 fish in the boat and roughly 10 takedowns. Good day of fishing overall, with probably 10 boats on the lake total.

Then we had to take the boat out. Once on the trailer, it took 5 tries to get over the hump on the launch. Much tiresmoke and grinding of the trailer over the asphalt hump, and we are finally on our way. Its not good if you have a two wheel drive truck because you won't get a boat over 1500lbs out of the water. DON'T USE THE NORTH RESORT LAUNCH.

Good day, and the fish were a brilliant orange, very nice color for stockers.

E

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