Last weekend I had the chance to fish Diamond Lake in southern Oregon for the first time. Being late April, it was a little too early in the season to experience the trout fishing that Diamond Lake is justifiably famous for as the water temperature was a chilly 44 degrees. Also, the high desert spring weather was bi-polar with sleet & snow the first day shifting to bright and sunny the next.

In spite of this, we all caught some nice trout. My friend John caught a 21” fat rainbow off the bank and I got one that was 19”. Some friends of ours brought their boats, anchored up not far from the lodge and brought some nice trout to hand as well.  Fat 10” to 12” specimens made up the bulk of the action.

Much of the lake is not very deep and so floating or intermediate fly lines worked fine. The hot flies were streamers and nymphs and a combination of a streamer in front with a nymph trailer covered all the bases. I tried chironomids under an indicator but the fish were not active enough to hunt them down before my patience with this technique faded.

Naturally, a float tube or small motor boat is best BUT fishing off the bank worked surprisingly well too. If you have a good roll cast all you had to do was reach the drop off 20 to 30 feet offshore and you were in business. The lake has a paved bike path close to the shore and walking along this while looking for likely looking structure in the form of drop offs, foam lines and fallen trees worked well.

The lodge had good burgers & such and after a chilly spring day nothing beats some good hot food in a rustic atmosphere.