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Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

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Fish Lake Report
Chelan County, WA

Details

02/11/2012
Ice Fishing
Perch
Other
Jig
All Day
02/14/2012
4
2124

Always wanted to fish Fish Lake, but never dreamed I'd finally do it through the ice. This was our first ice fishing adventure in Washington State. Ice fished in North Dakota at 60 below F windchill, so 35-40 degree temps February 11-13, 2012 at Fish Lake were much more comfortable!

Three of us went with a friend who has ice fished Fish Lake many times so it made our adventure successful. We fished Friday evening, and on and off all day Saturday and Sunday. The ice was approximately 12-14" thick. There was a snow compressed top layer of maybe 6 inches, then an air space, then another 4-6" of hard ice. We had our fish camera with us and in 30 foot depths the water temperature was 34 degrees. Hard to imagine how the fish survive at all without ice-kill.

Our goal was to catch perch. The first darn thing I did was catch a rainbow trout. The four of us brought home 91 perch and 7 trout.
We had an Eskimo ice shelter with propane heater, lights, chairs, and camera, so when we wanted to get out of the wind or just relax, we retreated to our castle. We must have been the tourist attraction has several groups of snowmobilers came out to check us out and come inside the shelter for a look-see.

We had a great time and promptly returned the smaller fish to grow bigger for another visit.

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Comments

MotoBoat
2/15/2012 10:46:00 AM
The snow mobiles came out onto the lake? I haven't seen snow mobile tracks on the when frozen for several years now. What size were the trout and perch? Use similar gear to what is used in North Dakota?
Jordan
2/24/2012 3:21:00 PM
how big were the perch??
CarpMouth
2/24/2012 3:36:00 PM
Hi Motoboat and Jordan,

Yes, on Saturday, one snowmobile came to us, but there were at least two others than came onto the ice on the opposite end of the lake from us. Then on Sunday, a group of 7 snowmobiles came out to us, plus a single machine at a different time.

The trouts were 12-14". The perch that we kept were all 10-13". We used drop sinker rigs - some with plain hooks for the bait and others with ice fishing jigs or grubs. We also had a couple of ice fishing darter jigs that brought some fish. The gear was similar to North Dakota. The main difference was the N.D bite was much, much lighter. Talk about a "finesse bite". N.D. was tough in comparison to the more aggressive perch bite at Fish Lake when then finally did find our baits. Happy Fishing!
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

Phone: (509) 687-0709