Timothy Lake Fishing June 29, 2014

Yes, there was even more fishing this weekend! After fly fishing the swift, cold Oak Grove Fork and the secluded, quiet lake behind my cabin, I decided to do some fishing at the largest and most popular fishing lake in the Mt. Hood area. And this would be Timothy Lake. Any person who is familiar with the Mt. Hood area knows of Timothy Lake, the huge, deep blue lake that is popular among swimmers, boaters, and fishermen alike. It can be seen on nearly any postcard sold within ten miles of Government Camp.

I decided to head there to do some trout trolling last morning, in the midst of some of the strangest weather we have been experiencing. Yesterday's toggled haphazardly between beautiful sunshine and stampeding hail. Today was around the same, with the full spectrum of possible conditions being encountered in the manner of a half-hour drive. However, the weather started to better by the time my father and I reached the Pine Point boat dock. 

After loading up our canoe with fishing tackle and rods, we launched into the enormous lake. Although it is dwarfed by many other bodies of water in Oregon, it is still the largest and deepest lake in the Mt. Hood area, with an area of over two square miles. As a result, it can be very daunting to fish, especially without any sort of motor or sonar technology. Aside from randomly throwing baits from shore, fishing from a boat needs a lot of practice and a little luck. The huge and deep lake gives fish plenty of room to swim around, and many fishing efforts have to be concentrated around structural areas. The problem is that many of these cannot be seen from the surface and I, once again, do not have a depth finder. As a result, it can be intimidating to fishermen at times.

I started off a short distance from the dam with some different colors of Powerbait. I tried the normally-effective green and rainbow colors with little luck, even though small fish were jumping absolutely everywhere. It was extremely frustrating, especially since I had talked to a kid yesterday who had caught one using the exact same bait. 

After putting up with this abuse for a half an hour, I reeled in the Powerbait and decided to do some trolling because I could cover more water. Besides, trolling uses lures that catch bigger fish. I rigged up one rod with a salmon egg-tipped Wedding Ring. It's one of the most popular lures here, and I figured it might produce some fish. Perhaps even one of Timothy Lake's small Kokanee. Few people fish for them due to their size, but they would still be fun to hook while trout fishing. I rigged the other rod up with an F4 Frog Flatfish, another excellent trolling lure. I'm not very savvy with trolling speeds, so I just tune the plug and find a speed that produces the action I like best. I let both lines out and looked for the rod holders. The rod holders I left back at the house. Settling for the spaces between an extra seat (the black foam thing in the photo above), I began rowing in slow s-curves.

I had just begun dragging my plug about twenty yards from a grassy shoreline when the rod with the flatfish slammed down and fell onto the deck of the canoe. I scrambled over and grabbed it just as a fish began going nuts, splashing frantically on the surface. Taking care not to tangle my lines, I brought the fish along the side of the boat. It jumped again before I was able to grab it by the lure and hoist it in the boat.

As you might guess by the way the deck looks, things pretty much went haywire because a ten-inch fish. I worked the lure out of its mouth before tossing it in my cooler. Since the plug had turned a fish, I put another one on my other rod. I set the lines out again, and after a few disastrous tangles, began trolling again. After rowing for a while longer without much action, we reeled up and headed for shore. I talked to some other fishermen and they had caught little as well. Although it had been a relatively slow day of fishing, it was still a fun two hour trip on one of Oregon's most beautiful lakes.