Olalla Lake

Waiting to spend a week in Florence was killing us so we decided to pack up a few days early and head to Newport to fish Olalla reservoir and stay at the family house.  We’re pretty horrible at waiting for anything, for that matter.  Anyway, in our haste to get fishing we forgot that we were heading out on a Saturday, the first day of spring break, and the week after the lake had been stocked.  It was a zoo.  Luckily, Olalla has a roped and semi-improved launch so we didn’t run into the same problems as Big Creek Resevoir.  In general the crowd at Olalla seems a bit more respectful of each other.  The people are really nice and actually courteously say hello, or at least wave.  The photo is pretty far away (which is where we wanted to be) from the party, but all of those dots on the hillside are cars, trucks, and RVs.  The boat launch is just to the left in the picture.

Since we weren’t on a mission to slay a boatload of stocked trout, we skirted the edge of the lake looking for shallow areas that might hold bass.  Olalla is a fairly deep lake and slopes quickly from the banks.  On a whole tour around the edges and arms of the lake we only found a couple of areas where bass could possibly be.  We did actually come upon a school of about 8 bass that were hanging out under some downed trees in the most gradually sloping shallow area on the lake.  As is always our experience this time of year, they wanted nothing to do with us.  Some of the smaller fish did actually look at a small trout popper, but they were either lethargic because of the water temperature (48 to 50 degrees) or they could plainly see us because of the amazing clarity of the water.  

The scissors in the picture are the 4 inch Dr. Slicks, for reference.  These poppers are really fun to work, despite the fact that they weren’t productive this time.  On stormy days we’ve been painting some of these up lately and have been trying to test how they work in the water.  It’s been a good no-fish day project.

So, no luck with the bass again which was expected, but at least we know where they are now.  Maybe in the fall when we get back from Alaska the weather will still be warm enough that the bass will be aggressive.  Olalla Lake sits right outside of Toledo, Oregon which tends to get hotter in the day than Newport because it’s about 10 miles inland.  It could happen.

The main mission for the day was to get out of the house and fish, but we also wanted to check out Tippy’s sonar/gps system for the Munsel Lake trip.  We ended up marking the deepest spot on Olalla at about 75 ft.  

While the fishing was pretty weak (aside from stocked trout), it was good to get out and explore the lake.  It was amazingly clear with lots of structure, some sandy bottoms, and cut trees actually in the lake.  For anyone out there with a real summer, I’d look into the bass when it starts to warm up.