Hooked by a dream

Mike Matney has combined his decades of expertise with bulldozers and fly fishing to transform a hay field into a trout factory. The Kettle Falls businessman and excavator has joined his brother, Ron, to launch the first full pay-to-fish season at Horseshoe Lake, a private fishery he re-created east of Chewelah.
“This has been a dream I’ve had for a long time,” he said, as a bald eagle swooped down to check out the smorgasbord of hefty triploid rainbows, brook trout and cutthroats.
Horseshoe Lake was drained in 1906 by copper miners who needed to raise hay for their horses, Matney said.
By 1929, the lake had been dammed and refilled so an entrepreneur could raise fish in order to sell eggs and fry to the Washington Game Department for stocking in other lakes.
In 1969, the lake was sold to a foreign investor. In 1973, a drain tunnel plugged in the earthen dam that bolstered the untended lake, causing a massive washout that left regulators wary.
“I bought the place in the mid ‘80s and didn’t know it would take 12 years to get the permits and build the lake again,” Matney said.
“I had to deal with 27 government agencies, including the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But I had the equipment to do it all. This is my retirement plan.”
Horseshoe is one of three private waters the Matneys manage complete with guest accommodations in the business they call 3 Lakes Fly Fishing:
Little Moose Lake, north of Kettle Falls, is 8 acres at elevation 2,000 feet, with depths up to 40 feet. The spring-fed lake is home to trout as well as bass that tend to be more aggressive than trout during hot weather.
Dad’s Lake, 35 acres, elev. 2,600 feet, is north of Colville at the end of a road near the Canada border. The lake is fed by a small stream with depths up to 25 feet. A third of the lake is 6-10 feet deep with half the lake easily fished from the bank.
Horseshoe Lake, 33-acres, elev. 3,100 feet, is fed by three cold-water springs that stream from the hillside. The lake is custom contoured to include islands along 6- to 10-foot flats that drop off into several 16-foot channels.
Horseshoe is patterned off of Dad’s Lake, which Matney’s father built in 1973.
“My brother and I grew up spoiled rotten catching 5-pound brook trout,” Mike Matney said. “Dad built the lake just for the family.”
Matney improved on the design. A channel runs along the west shoreline, which is shaded by timber to provide trout a summer refuge from the heat. Brush was left in a flat in the center of the lake to provide extra habitat for aquatic insects. Islands and peninsulas were created to be friendly to fish as well as to anglers.
One peninsula forms a T that easily accommodated a stillwater fly fishing school Matney hosts during early June.
Spokane fly fishing guides G.L. Britton and Steve Moran said they looked forward to teaching the school.
“This place would be a fisherman’s dream even if the deer and moose didn’t come to the shoreline or the ruffed grouse weren’t over there drumming in the woods,” Moran said, noting that Britton calls the engineered lake a golf course for anglers.
“And when we’re not teaching, we get to fish,” Moran said.
Matt Slagle, an eighth-grader from Republic, was enrolled in the school as a gift from his parents who recognized his passion for fly fishing.
“I’ve caught a few,” he said after the first day of classes. “But they all broke off. I didn’t realize they would be so big.”
Most of the fish in Horseshoe were stocked as 6-inchers three years ago. Most of the triploid rainbows were running 18-20 inches at ice-off in April before the growing season kicked in, Matney said, noting that an aerator ran all winter to protect his investment of fish worth about $150,000.
“Some of the fish are bigger,” Matney proved by spraying some fish feed off a dock. He incited a feeding frenzy that looked something like a boiling pot of chrome automobile bumpers.
Fishing at the lakes is catch-and-release only.
In one of many instructional sessions during the 3 Lakes three-day school, Britton explained that fly fishing still-water lakes is every bit as technically challenging as fly fishing streams. Pulling a few handfuls of weeds onto a dock, they plucked a bounty of damselfly nymphs, blood worms, scuds, leeches and other natural aquatic fish food to show the students.
If another angler is catching more fish on a lake, you probably need to make at least one of three adjustments to presentation, Britton said:
“ Change fly patterns to match what the fish are selecting.
“ Adjust depth of presentation to where fish are feeding.
“ Adjust retrieve speed, faster or slower.
“Presentation is really important on a lake,” Britton said. “It’s the difference between catching fish and not catching fish, and it changes during the season.”
Like most fishing lakes in the region, Horseshoe Lake is an angler magnet in May and June, when rivers are blown out from spring runoff. Bookings showed it. The lakes were reserved solid through June, Matney said.
“But good fishermen can catch lots of big trout here all through the summer,” he said.
“You can pound them going deep with chironomids,” Britton said.
“And some of the best fishing is in the fall, when we get dry fly action again and the fish have had more time to grow,” Matney added.
At Horseshoe, Matney has restored the house built in 1947. Matney’s son built the beds and bunks out of wood from the family’s sawmill. Historic fishing-related photos of Matney’s grandparents, parents and previous owners grace the walls. Every photo has significance.
The daily rod fee also includes use of Matney’s “rafts,” which essentially are a dock propelled by an electric trolling motor.
“People are welcome to bring their own float tubes, although I prefer they don’t bring any milfoil in with them,” he said.
“But the docks allow you to walk on a steady platform, put out a lawn chair, set out a cooler. Take it up the lake and anchor or let the breeze drift you into new fish.
“Once they take the raft out, the float tube stays on shore,” Matney said.