McDowell Lake revived for fly fishers

With spring runoff fouling the rivers, it’s prime time for trout fishing in the region’s lakes.

Looking for something new?

McDowell Lake in the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge southeast of Colville stands out in the crowd of options for several reasons:

•It’s among the handful of Washington waters reserved for catch-and-release fly-fishing only.

•The clientele is limited further by the walk-in access, which requires floating vessels to be wheeled in on a gated road from one end of the lake or carried at least 70 yards down a steep hillside to the water at the other end.

•No motors are allowed.

•Although 33-acre McDowell has been a popular angling attraction for decades, the fishery is, indeed, something new.

By the late 1990s, McDowell had become infested with tench. Members of the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club volunteered to help the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife trap and haul away thousands of pounds of the undesirable bottom dwellers in an experiment to control their numbers.

“We hauled out about 2,000 pounds of tench the first time we trapped,” said club member George Potter. But after three years of trapping, “it was clear that trapping just wasn’t effective,” he said. “We just couldn’t get them all.

“We started showing the biologists that the rainbows just weren’t in good shape and the numbers were down.”

The wildlife refuge staff came on board to support a rotenone treatment of the lake, as well as a 2006 drawdown and treatment to help control the milfoil infestation.

The water level was restored and the lake was rehabilitated in the fall of 2006 and restocked with hatchery rainbows, including some fin-clipped native redbands.

With no competition for food, the trout have packed on the muscle of little linebackers.

The catch-and-release lake, elevation 2,300 feet, is lightly stocked to promote growth, but when the fish are on the feed, the action can be steady.

Eastern brook trout are in the Little Pend Oreille River system and will eventually return to the lake, but they’re not being stocked, said Chris Donley, WDFW district biologist.

On the water last week, Potter said he and his companions used chironomid patterns to catch fish constantly from 10 a.m. to noon.

“The chironomid hatch backed off around noon and it slowed down in the afternoon, but we weren’t disappointed. We’d caught a lot of fish,” he said.

While in the area last Sunday, I detoured on a whim to McDowell, arriving at 6 p.m. and finding the lake vacant of anglers. The water surface was littered with chironomid husks. I figured the fish must have been on a feeding binge.

I carried my pontoon down the steep trail from the closest road access. I’d planned to row around and explore the lake for a bit, but I got only about 200 yards before a strong 14-inch rainbow slammed the Woolly Bugger I was trolling.

After releasing the fish, I switched rods and on the second cast with a size-14 green-black chironomid, I hooked another rainbow with the power to spin my pontoon.

At 7:25 p.m., fish were rising here and there. I tied on size-18 Parachute Adams and managed to hook a fish on the surface after 15 minutes. A soft-hackle pattern fished with a twitch just under the surface probably would have been a better choice.

Goldeneyes were swimming around me; tree swallows were feeding heavily above me; the local ospreys had quieted down, but as the full moon rose at the southeast end of the lake, white-tailed deer were feeding along the trail and under the huge scattered ponderosa pines on the northeast shore.

I didn’t see the otters that have been in the lake recently, but they’re around.

I went back to a chironomid and caught two more trout before the surface went calm and fishing slacked off in the pending darkness.

The refuge brochure says the lake is being managed for “quality fishing” experience.

Now I reminded of what that means.