Return To Three Creeks

The moral of this story is -- never trust what the Forest Service or the newspaper has to say.

The Central Oregon Cascades received a lot of snow this last winter, which is a good thing. But one drawback of a good snow year is that some of the higher elevation lakes can remain inaccessible into the summer months. Three Creeks Lake is an example of such a body of water.

Dan and I had great success there on the last weekend of the 2005 fishing season, and we were anxious to get back up to this 6500-foot-elevation lake as soon as road was clear, particularly given our lack of trout success so far this season at Ochoco Reservoir, Lava Lake, and Crane Prairie (although Dan did land a fat 18-inch rainbow at Crane Prairie last weekend that probably weighed three pounds).

A call earlier in the week to the Ranger Station revealed that Three Creeks Lake would be accessible by the weekend, and Thursday's fishing report in the local newspaper confirmed that the lake was indeed accessible. Both of those sources were sort of right. But there was one problem -- when we reached the lake, the boat ramp was not accessible. There was a huge snow drift blocking the road about 150 feet before the boat launch. There was no way to get the boat onto the water. I wish the Ranger Station or the newspaper would have made some mention of this rather important detail.

What that meant was that we had to fish from the bank, which was hugely disappointing given that we pulled a boat all the way up there over one of the worst roads I've ever been on. But we walked around to the far side of the lake and started fishing off the shore with powerbait and a worm/marshmallow combo. Dan immediately caught a nice brook trout with a worm/marshmallow, and then missed a fish. I switched over to the W/M combo, and started immediately catching fish.

It was one of the best days I've ever had trout fishing from shore. We limited out before the morning was over -- mostly on brook trout but with a few rainbows thrown in -- and at least six of the fish were 14 inches in length. All of the trout we caught were in excellent shape. The last fish I landed -- a big brookie -- nearly pulled my fishing pole into the lake (I was about forty feet from my rod when that particular fish hit -- don't try that at home).

The really cool part is that we were the only people we could see on the lake who were really ripping into the trout -- we probably only saw three or four other fish caught, and there were quite a few people fishing.

I enjoy days like that, particularly when you can drive down the mountain and have three trout sizzling on the BBQ within 90 minutes of leaving the lake. And yes -- they were delicious.