When: Sat. April 7th, meet at 8:00 AM at the Deschutes Angler in Maupin
Where: Shaniko Lakes (click here for a full description of the lakes)
Rod/Line: 5 to 7 weight rod with a matching reel with a floating and hopefully an intermediate clear sinking line.  A clear sinking line can be extremely helpful when lake fishing and they can usually be purchased for around $30.00 (of course the reel or spool to put it on costs a bit more).
Leader: 9 to 15 feet in length tapered from 0 to 5X
Flies: wooly buggers, seal buggers, midges, callibaetis mayflies, leaches, scuds,etc. Some patterns will be provided by the club.
Other: waders or hip boots. You don't have to wade deep.
Directions: Deschutes Angler Maupin OR
Cost: $100 per member (Non-angling guests are not allowed on the ranch for liabilty reasons)

Activities
Everyone is invited to attend a pre-fish session covering equipment, rigging, presentations, fly selection, and where to find fish in lakes.  We're also planning a club sponsored lunch.

General Information
Imagine yourself standing knee deep in a spring fed pristine lake surrounded by 4-8 lb. rainbow trout slurping insects off the water all around you. Hundreds of big trout noses, dorsel fins, and tails break the surface of the glassy lake just off the tip of your rod. Your hands tremble as you tie on a callibaetis cripple, make a delicate presentation, twitch the fly on the surface, and stand paralyzed in shock and awe as the snout envelops the fly in the ring of the rise. What happens in the next few minutes might best be described as pure and utter mayham - screaming reel, bucking rod, skyrocketing silver slab of trout, water flying everywhere.... This scenario plays itself out time and time again dozens of times per day for each angler!

The April fish-a-long will be held on Sat. April 7th at the Shaniko Lakes located near the town of Shaniko  Oregon.  We will have exclusive access to these lakes for the day!  These lakes are hugely productive with large hard fighting Kamloops rainbow trout that can push the 10 pound mark. There are 9 lakes on private property and are leased through the Deschutes Anglers fly shop in Maupin. The lakes are limited to 15 anglers per day so it's first come first serve. The cost is $100 dollars per member. If we get more than 15 members that want to go we'll do our best to reschedule another day.

Instruction on lake fishing will be held for those members who would like some help. We will cover equipment, rigging, presentations, where to find fish in lakes  and fly selection (please see the articles on lake fishing in our April-May-June 2006 newsletters). All but one of these lakes can easily be fished from shore without the need for a float tube,  pontoon boat or some other small watercraft. The lakes are small and shallow with lot's of room for casting making it a great place to concentrate on learning and fishing. The outing and instruction will be filmed and shown at a later club meeting.

I asked Lane how important an intermediate clear line is to your success on lakes and if an intermediate sink-tip type line would have any disadvantages .  Here's his response.  Good question, will an intermediate sink tip line work, yes, but with some disadvantages. When fishing lake I use my full intermediate sinking line about 75 to 80 percent of the time. When using a full intermediate line I cast out let the line sink using the countdown method. Because the full line is under water it's unaffected by the wind. When fishing this type of line you put your rod tip in the water when you retrieve you line. Because everything is in a straight line, every action of your retrieve is directly transmitted to the fly giving it the action you want it to have. Remember in a lake you have to make the fly have action where in a river the current will impart action to your fly. With an intermediate line we cast out and count it down, the old one thousand one, one thousand two, etc. When you find a depth the fish are feeding at you can control your retrieve to be at that level, thus having your fly at the right depth all of the time. Sink tip lines don't allow this. The intermediate sinking lines sink at such a slow rate (1 to 1 1/2 inches per second) that when you start a retrieve they stay at that depth through out the full retrieve.

This trip is being arranged through the Deschutes Angler fly shop in Maupin.  Amy and John Hazel are the owners of the shop and club sponsors so please stop by their shop (right on main street in Maupin) on your way to or from the fish-along.

Special Information
Non-angling guests are not allowed on the ranch for liabilty reasons. If you are planning to camp, there are great group sites along the Deschutes. The Deschutes is only 20 minutes or so from the Shaniko Chain of lakes.  Four wheel drive vechicles are recommended to access all of the lakes.