Sorry about the delay in getting this posted, I had 400 plus work related e-mails to wade through when we got back from our trip Tuesday afternoon.

We camped at Mossyrock Park on Riffe Lake and I plan to do a Blog post about the trip so I won’t get into the camping and exploring in my fishing report. That said we had a blast and TPW does an excellent job managing their parks. We fished Riffe Lake a number of times and after exploring the canyons fished Mayfield Lake for a few hours Sunday afternoon.

We fished Riffe lake Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Our morning efforts were focused on the landlocked coho fishery. Both mornings it was easy limits of fish to about 19”. In that we were camping we only kept a few fish, releasing most fish while staying within our limit. Both days we were running small chrome and chartreuse green dodgers or swing blades followed by custom tied green and silver spinners or spin-n-glow lures. Our leader lengths were about 14” to about 20”, typically running the spinner setups on the longer leaders. We tipped everything with cured shrimp.

We were running a 4 rod spread, two on the downriggers and 2 lead line rigs. We ran 50-60’ behind the clips with the riggers at 12 feet to about 38 feet with 16 feet being the most productive. The lead line setups were both run at 1 color. Our optimum trolling speed was 1.4 mph and it seemed that if we ran faster than that we would pick up smaller fish. Speaking of, we found that the larger fish and the smaller fish were very segregated. If we started catching smaller fish we would move to try to locate the larger fish. For us the point located about ½ mile upstream from the dam on the north side of the lake was the most productive for larger fish. Although on this trip our land locked coho fishing efforts we focused on the dam end of the lake, I am looking forward to exploring other areas in the future.

Saturday afternoon we towed the kayak over to Swofford arm so the kids could paddle around and we could fish smallmouth or whatever we could get to bite. Our smallmouth fishing was less than productive but we caught the biggest perch we have ever caught. We didn’t actually measure it but it was fat all of 10” maybe more. The afternoon was fun fishing and the kids had a great time with the kayak.

salmonbarry

7/14/2011 9:15:00 PM

hey great report! we were there Sunday at the upper area and only managed 1 over 16" but lots of action on the 10-12" inchers

we will definetely try the lower section next and I was thinking since there is no launch in the middle of the lake, it doesn't get much pressure and may be worth running up a quarter way or so and give it a try.. any thoughts or have you tried the middle of the reservoir?

'OL GREY DOG

7/16/2011 8:10:00 AM

sounds like a great trip.....did you have any cell service down there ?

salmonbarry

7/16/2011 8:26:00 AM

I had great cell service there- I am with Sprint

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