Few Fishermen Find Cause For Celebration At Chopaka

Forty to 50 fly fishers, many of them considered experts by their peers, donned their waders, rigged up their tackle and headed for their boats, float tubes and pontoon boats at Chopaka Lake, confident they’d hook and release 15 to 20 outsized rainbows.

What happened the next few hours frustrated even the most blase fishermen.

The 14- to 20-inch rainbows cruised just beneath the surface slurping chironomid pupae and adults so tiny that few of the fly fishers carried patterns small enough to imitate the midges. Even those who had flies tied on No. 28 hooks discovered that their patterns would get lost among the thousands of insects that hatched.

The insects, slightly larger than a pin head, were so small that they weren’t visible on the water. Fly fishers became aware of their size and numbers when the adults landed on their ears, cheeks, hands and clothing.

One fly fisher who had hooked and released more than 40 rainbows the previous day on a pupa pattern with a copper wire body caught only one fish in 3 hours of pounding the water with a variety of flies.

It’s not often that tiny insects frustrate lake fly fishers. Generally, most midges that hatch at lakes are large enough to imitate on Nos. 18 and 20 hooks. At streams, on the other hand, exceptionally tiny midges frequently hatch, frustrating fly fishers.

Al Stier, Jack Pattullo and I had driven the 200 miles from Spokane to Chopaka, hoping the legendary Callibaetis mayfly hatch would be at a peak. We knew that the Department of Natural Resources campground would be crowded and that at least one of the big Coast fly clubs would have an outing over the Memorial Day weekend. But we planned to leave by the time the mob showed up.

As I drove up the horrendous, steep road out of Loomis, I knew that we’d be too late to fish that day. We’d just have time to set up a camp. When we arrived, mayflies were everywhere. Naturally, we assumed the mayflies would be out the next day.

Nature has a mind of her own, though, and permitted only a few mayflies to emerge the next day and only for 15 minutes. Like nearly all other fly fishers, we fished with chironomids.

Our problem was that we didn’t have the right chironomid patterns. Although I have more than 300 chironomid flies in my boxes, I didn’t have one that closely resembled the one that relatively few successful fly fishers were fishing with. Their pattern resembled the Brassie, which has a wire copper body and a head-thorax of peacock herl. However, they ribbed the copper wire with black thread.

Their pattern was deadly. Several fly fishers, using chironomids with copper bodies, hooked and released more than 20 big rainbows each. Copper, it seemed, was the key to success at the lake that’s reputed to be the best fly fishing lake in Washington.

I hooked three rainbows on a San Juan Worm, one on a Brassie that I borrowed from Stier and another on a chironomid pupa pattern created for a small lake near Banks Lake. Stier and Pattullo hooked a few on various patterns. For the most part, we were frustrated.

We didn’t know when we crawled into our sleeping bags that night that we and all other fly fishers at the lake would be even more frustrated when the midget midges would hatch the next day.

When the one-eighth-inch midges hatched, a cold drizzle developed, eventually chilling most fly fishers. I fished 3 hours and caught only one rainbow, an 18-incher that took the same pupa pattern that I had used the previous day.

Finally, we gave up, broke camp and headed for home, three chastened fly fishers.

Few of the scores of the state’s fly fishers who fished Chopaka last weekend realize that there’s a possibility that the lake will be treated with rotenone next year. Someone released bass into the lake two or three years ago; eventually, the bass may multiply and compete with the trout for food.

Fisheries biologist Ken Williams has heard from several fly fishers that bass have been caught, but he must confirm their presence in the fabulous fly fishing-only lake. He hopes to learn one way or another this year before making a recommendation to his superiors.

“I wouldn’t like to see the fishing go down hill slowly,” he said. “I would want to rehabilitate it as soon as possible and start over.”

The rainbows in the lake are healthy, thick bodied trout, capable of making a dozen or more long runs. That may indicate the bass are having trouble spawning and multiplying.

, DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Fenton Roskelley by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 3814.