Odell Lake Reports 2000

August 19, 2000

I took 3 relatives to Odell Lake for Friday afternoon 8-18-00 and Saturday 8-19-00. The weather was quite cool and windy in the afternoons. We fished with the Beer Can flashers on the downrigger ball and a small Sep's dodger with a homemade wedding ring spinner on the fishing line. We also fished 2 lines without downriggers using Bolo flashers and wedding ring spinners with 2 oz. of lead. We used corn on both setups with some drops of Procure Kokanee scent. Both setups worked although the downriggers outfished the other setup about 2 to 1. Fishing was quite good on Saturday afternoon. We managed to boat 20 in about 4 hours. It was quite hard to land the fish as the wind was pushing the boat along and no way to slow it down. We ended up with 35 fish total for the 4 of us. We fished the downriggers at 40 - 45 feet and fished from the west end of the lake to the center of the lake. We saw fish just about constantly on the screen. I'm always amazed at the sheer numbers of kokanee at Odell.

Hope you're having a good summer. My family and I moved in the Spring and have been doing a remodel effort as well, so this was my first kokanee outing of the year. Glad it was a good one.
This report submitted by Dan

August 13, 2000

I fished Odell Lk for the first time this year which is unusual for me...normally , by now, I would be on my third trip. However, trips to Wallowa, Calif., and the excellent salmon fishing on the coast interfered until now. Also, Odell has really had mixed reviews on the kok fishing this yr. I fished Fri, Sat and Sun . The fishing seemed to be fair for those with some experience. I would estimate the average to have been about 4 fish per hr. for those who know how to fish the lake. The good news is the size of the koks has improved. With a little culling, you could keep mostly fish in the 12 to 14 in. range with a few at 15 in. Nice fat, healthy fish with no parasites. Trolling 40 to 60 ft. was best except very early they were caught as shallow as 20 ft. People trolling without downriggers in the upper column of water seemed to do ok, but with smaller fish. The most common gear was gang spinners trailed by wedding rings with 2 to 5 oz. of lead. The trollers with downriggers were using small dodgers or "sling blades" trailed by wedding rings or small spoons. I did best with a dodger and pink mini hoochie. More people are now scenting their corn which seems to help. The bite was light and fish were easily lost. Either they were lost right after the initial strike or half way to the boat. I observed more fish lost by those who kept up their trolling speed while playing the fish. The bigger koks are just starting to mature with tighter scales, a little hook to the jaw but still very bright good looking fish. The West wind and barometer changes may have had adversley affected the fishing. People who have been up there for most of the summer said it was much better fishing a couple of weeks ago. We did manage to bring home a good number of fish. The koks that graced our table at camp were delicious off the barbecue. There will be bright fish for weeks to come, so I will return.

This report submitted by John

July 8, 2000

Me and my two boys Casey and Ryan made our annual kokanee trip to three lake's. First we went to Waldo just for fun, the boy's are 8 and 10. And that what it was, no fishing just fun! Then the 23rd we went to Wickiup, we went to the camp grounds by South twin and they were all full, and full of party animals. So we bagged that and went straight to Odell. We have always done really well there, even when everybody else is doing not doing so good! We trolled flashers off of cannon balls, with home made wedding rings and corn and eggs in anise oil, between 35' and 70' all week with 47' doing the best. But it was windy at night and we had to drift with all the other die hards, fish were hard to find, overall we smoked and canned 19 kokes up there, in 5 days of fishing, thats bad! I believe most of the fish are in the middle of the lake spread out and haven't moved totally to the west end!(I was told that by a campground host and I believe it) By the way the fish are from 10" to 16" -nice- Good fishing and have fun!

This report submitted by The Evans boys

June 17, 2000

We were in Central Oregon over the weekend and fished Odell on Saturday, 06-17. Fishing was very difficult and we got skunked. There was a lot of pressure and we only saw a few fish get caught and the most we knew of was 5 fish in one boat of 4 fisherman. They had been jigging since dawn near the cinder slide area, in about 90 feet of water and the fish they caught were right on the bottom.

We switched to Wickiup on Sunday. We got 3 fish near Goose Island on bait, in a group of about a dozen boats anchored up. The wind came up about 10 AM, so we went up the Davis Crk arm and jigged pink/pearl buzz bombs and got 9 more fish in about 2 1/2 hours.

The wind cleared the lake by about 2 PM and we called it quits too, after water started slopping over the back end of the boat. The fish at Wickiup have picked up body weight since our trip in May, but otherwise are still on the small size.

This report submitted by Simpsons

June 4, 2000

We fished Odell last weekend. Four days, 6/1 thru 6/4. Most unbelievable case of lock-jaw I've ever seen! This is usually one of our favorite weekends, a little warm weather and usually a couple hundred fish or so. We caught zero kokanee for 6 guys in 4 days. It wasn't just us either. Probably saw 6 fish netted the entire time we were there. Jigging, trolling, baitfishing, it didn't matter that entire lake had turned off. All the normal schools were on the finder. Fish were jumping in the mornings and the evenings but nothing would bite. We bailed out and tried Crescent out of desperation and nothing there either. In fact, we were one of three boats out on the whole lake at one point. Don't know what the heck happened to the bite but I sure hope it's temporary!

This report submitted by Mike

June 4, 2000

Fished Odell last weekend (2nd-4th) with great results. Got up there early for a change on fri and hit the water about 6pm. Headed to the west end where we saw most of the other boats. Didn't see much action or get any until about 7:00. As the sun started to go down the fish started to jump and hit. we put 26 in the boat cast jigging in the top 15ft of water before we headed in for the night. Sat we got up and hit the water around 6am. The sun was already on the water(beautiful day for Odell) and the fish were deep and not biting. Went in for a late brkfast and decided to wait for the afternoon to go back out. Once again we didn't get into any fish until 7:00/7:30. Once they started it was fast and furious until about 9:00. My buddy got his limit and I got 18. There were a few 8-10in but most were 15-17in and fat. We just wind drifted thru where they were jumping and jigged in the top 15ft of water as we had on Fri. Sun we slept thru the alarm and woke up to another clear sunny day. hit the water for a little bit not expecting much action, which there was none,so headed home to catch the Trailchokers.

This report submitted by Teresea Morrison

May 27, 2000

Went to Odell yesterday, we put in about 9 a.m. To make a long story short we got skunked. There were scads of boats and fish all over the fish finder but we only caught one koke all day (pink buzzbomb w/ corn). We jigged, trolled and bottom fished from one end to the other to no avail. Even tried to troll for macks for a while but it just wasn't happening. The lake got really rough mid afternoon. Talking to others at the dock it appears we weren't alone. It sounds like it was slow all week. Nobody else was catching anything either.

This report submitted by John

May 20, 2000

Went to Odell Lake on Saturday, May 20 th and stayed through Sunday. I heard the fishing was good on Friday and was set on getting some fish. The weather was great, and the fish developed lock jaw for me and a lot of other people. Not sure why but did manage to get some fish trolling. They where of nice size, 11 1/2 to 14 inches and fat.

This report submitted by Gary

May 15-19, 2000

A group of us from the coast made our 9th annual 4 day fishing trip to central Oregon this past week, 05-15 thru 05-19. We fished really hard, but the weather kicked our butts on Monday afternoon, then all day on Tues & Wed.

Wickiup is terribly slow, with nothing but small kokes to be found. The only place we even found small kokes was up in the Davis Crk arm, where suprisingly, they are schooled up and biting. All 8 inchers and very little body weight. We tried to fish for browns, but a rather intense thunder/lightening storm with high winds cleared the lake on Monday evening!

We next fished Paulina on Tuesday morning and wasted our time. Very slow, with only a couple of fish caught between 6 of us in 3 boats. High winds again. We traveled to Crescent Lake, and again, the winds were the deciding factor. Only a total of 4 boats fishing the entire lake. One fish between our group.

We moved on to Odell in the afternoon and drift fished with the wind. We all did better, averaging about 20 fish between each pair in each boat. Nice size, but still not heavy. Very few caught jigging, most on trolling gear. Saved a lot of gas and just drifted in about 20 MPH winds.

We fished Odell on Wed again, picking up near limits for about 12 hours of fishing. Again, high winds and we drift fished trolling gear. Almost all the fish were caught on red wedding rings behind the plastic flasher sets.

On Thursday, the gods finally smiled and now I have a dandy sunburn. Beautiful weather and now we could jig. But... Most of the fish were caught while trolling, as most were very shallow. Mack's were rolling on the surface chasing the kokes around. About 50 or so boats from Princess Creek and east towards Sunset Landing, where we caught most of our fish on Tues, Wed and Thursday. Most of the fish were between 12-14 inches, but each boat in our group got 3-4 in the 16 - 17 inch range. Bonus fish!

This report submitted by Tom

May 5, 2000

I drove up to Odell thursday night to fish the lake Friday. The weather was pleasant Thursday night, but Friday morning was windy, cold and snowy. We hit the lake first light and went down to the west end. On the way there, we passed about 8 boats at the Princess Creek camp ground jigging. On the second cast at the west end we caught a 12 inch koke and then nothing for the next 2 hours. They were jumping quite a bit, but could not get any more hits. We then trolled down to princess creek and I picked up a nice 14 incher. At Princess Creek we anchored and managed to catch four kokes jigging. There was sporadic action upto about 9:30 and then it just stopped. We did see one boat land a 33 inch lake trout while we were there.

We spent the rest of the day trolling around the Princess Creek area and managed to put three more in the boat. Not exactly the best catching, but certainly better than opening day. The fish we caught jigging were at about 50 feet and the kokes we caught trolling were caught at 20 feet. The fish are in great shape and the biggest was about 14 inches. I'm going back in two weeks to give it a go again. If anyone gets there before then, let me know how you did.

Thanks Guy

This report submitted by Guy

April 29, 2000

We arrived at Odell at dawn on April 29, 2000 and could see fish feeding on the surface at the west end. They were still feeding when we got launched and got a cold motor started. We joined about fifteen boats and saw exactly one fish caught. We cruised the lake, looking for schools on the fish finder but couldn't find any so we went back to the west end and jigged until noon, watching fish jumping out of the water. A dry fly might have worked well. The kokes didn't seem interested in Nordics or Buzz Bombs. Nearly everyone else we talked to got skunked too. The one exception was a boat with three guys from the Valley who caught about two apiece on orange nordics, apparently fished fast on the surface. We tried doing what they were doing but it didn't work for anybody in our boat. Even though we didn't catch anything, the weather was sunny and clear and the osprey kept us entertained. Even the osprey seemed to be having difficulty catching anything. Maybe there was too much sunshine for good fishing. Water temperature was 41 deg F. Snow down to the edge of the lake. Maybe fishing will improve as the weather warms up.

This report submitted by Marshal

April 28, 2000

Normally I avoid the opening day parade, but with a new boat, I had to get it in the water. I drove to Odell Friday night and hit the lake first thing Saturday morning. The weather was cold, snowy, rainy and windy. Other than that it was great. We fished all day both jigging and some trolling. We did not get one koke. From what I could see, neither did many other people. This issue of the Fishing and Hunting Magazine said that fishing was great and the kokes were all over jiggs at 60 feet in the West Bay. I wonder who or what was there source. We fished in the west bay a good part of the day with about 30 other boats and we did not see Kokes all over anything. Did anyone really get into fish? If you did, congratulations. We did see one boat catch 2 kokes. They were small and the people were fishing about half way up the lake on the north shore. They were anchored on a drop off and jigging in about 50 feet of water. There were alot of fish on the fish finders, but were could not get any bites.

The day was not without some excitement. I did manage to hook a lake trout on my trout rod while I was jigging for Kokes. Now that was fun. It spooled me a coulple of times, but I finally got it up to the boat once and then it boiled and took off for the bottom and the jig came out. We might of had a chance to net it at the boat, but I forgot the net. Brand new boat and I can not remember to put the net in, go figure. Anyway, we guessed it would go about 15 pounds. It made the trip.

If anyone did have success let me know. I am going back to Odell in Mid May and would like to know where and how anyone got into some Kokes or if it was just me on opening day not able to catch any kokes.

This report submitted by Guy