Wickiup Reservoir Reports 1999
May 25, 1999
Kokanee fishing on Wickiup has improved dramatically in the last week. Four of us caught over 125 keepers over the weekend. Lots of small fish less than 5", which is a great sign for next year but makes catching the bigger fish a little more difficult. Bait is the only way to go. Jigging didn't produce many fish and the trollers were only catching the small fish.
Sean Gleason Director of Marketing
Sierra Sports
1600 Millrace Drive Eugene, OR 97403
Phone: (541) 334-4974 Fax: (541) 684-4343
This report submitted by Sean
May 9, 1999
Just wanted to let ya know that I did go to Wickiup this weekend and things have only gotten worse as far as I can tell.... I think most everyone stayed home, there was only about 20 boats on the whole lake....We got one 20 inch Brown. The water had warmed to 47 degrees and I kick myself for not tryin the Koke fishing on Saturday morning, the rest of the weekend wound up too windy for me to try and anchor in....There were still folks Koke fishin the Deschutes channel but in the one pass I made thru there I didn't see any caught out of the 4 or 5 boats fishing for em.
This report submitted by Deral
April 25, 1999
I've been traveling back in the Midwest on business so this is a bit late. I read Deral's report on Wickiup and we had much the same experience as he did. We specifically targeted the Brown's. 20 minutes after starting on Saturday morning we caught our biggest, a nice 4 pounder 20+ inches long. That was it until evening when we caught a small brown. But Sunday morning! We caught 5 browns, including another 20 incher and two that were probably 18 inchers. We even got our picture on the board at Twin Lakes Resort. By the way we caught the Browns on Size 11 Silver and Black Rapalas, trolled at 3 mph south and west of the dam in 6 to 10 feet of water.
We did fish for Kokanee to no avail on Saturday. Everything we could think of including trolling, jigging, et al. But Sunday we finally did get into the kokanee up in the Deschutes arm about even with Twin Lakes Resort. The fish were TINY. They would hit jigs tipped with corn, and we did end up with 14. The best luck people seemed to have was on orange buzz bombs. I walked over to the resort and bought a couple, but by then the bite had petered out and the wind picked up.
All in all, a great Wickiup weekend. This was our second year to start opening day at
Wickiup and I think we'll make it a tradition.
This report submitted by Dan
April 25, 1999
Made our annual trip to Wickiup for the opener again this year and yes, it does have water in it, contrary to the rumors that it was completely frozen over and unreachable because of snow on roads.
Opening morning we planned to fish the Deschutes channel for Browns as we had done the last two years ( pretty much by ourselves) but sunrise found what seemed like 1/2 the population of Portland had the same idea....Boats were everywhere.... pounding a pretty small area of water . We made a couple of passes a short way up the channel and back and had 3 takedowns resulting in the landing of one small brown (15 inches) that we released. We saw quite a few small browns taken by the armada and marked alot of fish which we were pretty sure were Kokanee but we weren't ready to quit brown fishing yet so we decided to head out on the main lake to try and find some water that wasn't being so heavily pressured . The weather was gorgeous, sunshine and NO wind, so we trolled the shallows for browns on out into the lake planning to meet some of our fishing buddies out at my favorite Kokanee hole about 10 am. We had a couple more takedowns and picked up another small brown we released as we trolled around the lake making our way ever closer to our meeting at my favorite Kokanee hole. We just knew we were gonna kill the Kokanee when we got there as we have always done in the past if we could get anchored on it on a calm lake.
At 10 am two boats from our camp joined another 5 boats already anchored there and another 3 boats from our group due to arrive shortly. The water was perfect, not even a ripple as we anchored and prepared to fill our boat with Kokanee. It was at that point that we started to get a refresher course in the difference between fishing and catching. Perfect conditions, T-shirts and shorts weather, great bait, good company, and plenty of lines in the water equals GREAT FISHING. The arrival of the other 3 boats from our camp (total of 10 boats now) x 3 hours of sitting there enjoying the weather also equals GREAT FISHING..... however the result of not catching a single fish between all of us equaled some mighty mighty POOR CATCHING !!!!!!!!!! lol At this point we decided the fish just weren't gonna show so we continued on our merry way and chased browns out in the main lake for most of the remainder of the day... Towards evening we decided to head back to the Deschutes channel and see if the pressure there had subsided and it appeared it had at the mouth but upon turning the first corner .........YIKES !!!!!!!!!!! there they were........( I guess those were Kokanee I was marking in the morning ).... Boats everwhere, anchored, trolling, You name it it was being done ..... and they were catching fish ... To make this a shorter story I'll just say that after we tried my Kokanee hole opening morning we spent the rest of the 3 days fishing exclusively for browns and ended up with only 2 browns over 20" inches ..1-- 20" and 1-- 21 1/2" ....Saturday was the only windless day on the lake itself and we didnt want to join the hordes in the channel ...
Talked with some folks in the campground that did fish the Kokes in the Deschutes channel and they had landed bunches of fish and said they really had to scrape to find some to keep.. They caught mostly small Kokes which is mostly what we saw being caught on our troll thru the boats on Saturday nite..
Some Observations : Kokanee were in the Deshutes Channel, water temp was 44 degrees, and they were catching some brown fishing was fair but didn't hear of anything big being caught ..
Facts: Cascade Lakes Highway is open to S Century Drive ( Crane -Wickiup Junction) coming in from Hwy 58... its closed beyond there as of last Monday . The road to Crane Prairie was plowed and open as of Monday ( don't know what lake conditions are) the camping around Wickiup above the high water marks was blocked by snow for much of the weekend but noticed Monday afternoon the some folks were finally making their way in .. All the campgrounds at Wickiup and Twin Lakes are open, with some patches of snow in them ....
Good Fishin To Ya ..... Deral
This report submitted by Deral