I was fishing in Kittitas county at another lake, when I decided to reach out to another NWFR member to ask for a recommendation for any lakes near Ellensburg. Thanks Joe, for the heads-up on Mattoon lake. I had driven by it many times on I-90, and it always seemed like there was people on the lake.

My partner, (motoboat) AKA: Wayne, and I reached the lake around 11:00 AM. We were fishing from pontoon boats, so had the whole lake available. There was a large contingent of anglers on the opposite side from the interstate. I was pretty surprised at how many people were here on a Monday. The lake did get a planting of 0.8 fish/lb. on March 5th, so maybe that was it.
We were fly fishing. I trolled mostly woolly buggers in olive or black. I only brought one 8" rainbow to the boat, as well as had just a couple bumps while trolling. Wayne caught 2-3 fish also in the 8" range. I saw a fair amount of cookie cutter 8" bows coming in on the shoreline as well. I did see one airborne fish that was prob one of the larger planted fish. Sunny day, fairly windy at some points. water temp. 46 degrees.

If anyone is curious, the lake is 10-15' throughout. I was running my humminbird, and scanned it very closely. The lake has an incredible amount of weeds, considering that we are just coming out of winter. Basically the hard bottom would register at 15', but the weed line would be solid weeds from the bottom, up to 5'. So, 15' water column, with 8-10' of clear water, and 5' of weeds on bottom.

The game dept made a visit to the launch area while we were getting out. A few people were shown the door, etc.

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