Lakes North Fork Reservoir Fishing Reports

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pdxflyguy
Yesterday in our power boat we made it up past the upper reservoir almost to the log jam in the early evening. The water & air is a little cooler there & it gets nice and shady in the evening. The fish were surfacing all over the place. Every 10 - 20 seconds. Appeared to be trout. We anchored up , got three lines in the water for an hour, and tried everything ....and couldn’t get more than maybe 2-3 bites. Salmon eggs. Power bait. Trout magnets. Spinner lures. With and without bobbers. With and without weights. The fish were taunting us , jumping 1-2 feet from our hooks. Kudos to them. What the heck were we doing wrong ? I’ve done more fly fishing than spin fishing so I was out of ideas after the bait , indicator and weight changes. Trying to teach my boys how to fish and I want to get them some success without giving up and going to a trout farm. Looking forward to going back with a new strategy. Thanks!!!
 
Echskech
Echskech
Honestly my guy, it sounds like you'd see some real success blending your fishing styles. I'd recommend throwing a water bobber (clear and floats but has some weight for casting) with 2 or 3 of your best nymph emerger strung of a few feet of tipet. Switch to caddis pupae about mid day.

Best of luck to you and your family.
 
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pdxflyguy
Thanks for the advice - we'll try that out. You are the second person to recommend a water bobber in this scenario. Alternately i could just keep my fly rod and reel with me on the boat.
 
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shiverfix
Went out on 6-20-2021

Put a new stern drive on the boat, and it has to go through 5 hours of break in at low RPM, so the trip was just supposed to be a couple hours of that, but we got bored and dropped the bow mount down and started trolling instead.

Went to Estacada, but it was bank to bank paddle boards, so decided to try North Fork. First time there. It was busy as well, but not full of paddleboards. Like I said, we decided to shut the big motor down and troll with the bow mount. All I had were kokanee flashers and needlfish spoons, and they were effective. A lot of strikes, a number of little guys to the boat, and one nice fish for dinner, around 18 inches.

Fishfinder said water was 66 degrees on the surface. Away from the boat ramp the water was pretty clear, could see the flasher down quite a ways. Fished mostly down around the south end under the power lines. Water was full of weeds and sticks if you went much further south than the power lines. Caught most of them in 15 feet of water, not sure how deep the lines were, one was probably running about 10 feet, the other around 7 feet, but just guesses. Both of the spoons were small silver and green.

A boat pulling a tube with kids split in between us and a small aluminum, close enough to the aluminum that the first breaking wake almost went over the boat. Wasn't sure for a minute that we weren't going to have to go into rescue mode. Good to see there are inconsiderate jerks on Oregon waters too...
 
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