Lower Lena Lake (47°37.153’N and 123°09.616’W), 1,787 feet, is reached via a three-mile hike with an elevation gain of 1,200 feet on the most popular trail of the Olympic Mountains, Trail 810. The water volume changes significantly with snow melt and the heat of summer. The lake is deep with submerged logs. It contains many small brook trout (to which I can attest) and reportedly contains rainbow and cutthroat trout (Washington Fishing, Fifth Edition).

The water temperature was 52 degrees. I’ve fished this lake once before but didn’t report it. This time I came with waders. I had the most success casting from some floating logs on the north shore, over five to ten feet of water, casting out (southward) forty feet or so with an olive Stillwater Nymph. The fish strikes usually came within fifteen feet of me as the fly was coming up from the bottom. I caught five brookies between five and seven inches in length.

Upper Lena was snowed over. Stopped hiking about a half-mile from that lake. As the Washington Fishing book says, these lakes are great to hike to. The fishing is really not the main attraction.

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