My favorite mountain lake is mt. hood's clear lake. From my house it is about an hour and a half drive to the boat ramp. Most days I can get there in the morning and leave by lunchtime with a limit of nice rainbow trout. There is a few brook trout in there but it is mostly a stock fishery with all levels of camping for city fokes. I think Reserve America has the twenty plus improved camp sites for reservations.
When you fish the lake in a boat you have four main areas, dam area, the spring area, the creek area and the middle. It is not a large lake or deep lake but when the snow is good or spring rain is heavy it can be great into late summer and never count out the last two weeks of the season because the fish know it is closing(hahaha). I am going to breifly discuss each area now.
Dam area. (SE)
This is the deepest area of the lake at 16 to 24 feet depending on the water levels. The key to how you fish this is really the wind, no wind you use a standard trolling rig, with wind you anchor 20 to 30 yards from the dam and try on of the three main ways to fish most sites. 1 - bobber with 36inches of leader and a worm(my buddy always uses potskys eggs), 2 - half a once lead with rainbow powerbait(but given time most power bait flavors will work), 3 - casting roostertails or small blue foxes toward the dam, let them drop deep then bring them in slow, the fish that hit this are fewer but bigger.
Spring area(or spring arm) (North)
When you are standing at the water on the boat launch look to the right and way way way down there you will see a field of green grass, that is the spring. This works very well if you have high winds, motor up to the end of the lake(watch for stumps). Turn toward the dam and watch you depthfinder when the bottom levels out start trolling. In early june(2009) the depth was about 12 feet but normally it is 9 or 8 feet. You need to keep a good trolling speed (about setting 3 on my medium size boat or 1.1 mph) and slowly let out a lot of line(40 pulls or about 60 feet plus). ALWAYS ALWAYS set your pole down and let the spinner work(a ford fender should tap tap bump tap tap bump), this is a good thing. If your pole is pulling hard you are going to fast, if you pole is going bump nothing bump nothing then go faster now or you will catch the biggest fish "the earth", you really don't want that.
As your boat enters the wind you should turn down your trolling motor because the wind will push you. The best bite should be right where the wind gets a good ripple on the waters surface because the fish can't see you. I prefer to troll 20 yards off either shore switching each pass.
Creek area(or creek arm)(West)
From the shore line of the boat launch if you look straight across and just a little to the right you will see the lake fade into the shore and appear to go around a corner. Motor your boat up there and you will see it gets very shallow up in the end. I have seen people fly fish in the shallow area and even seen a fish caught that way. I take my boat to the gravel boat launch and setup about 40 yards off shore. I start trolling straight for the middle of the lake and after about 60 yards I slowly head left to get about 25 yards off shore. There is a spot on that shore that comes out to a point and the fish there can be the best, most of my brook trout have been caught there. Always error on the slow troll there and watch out for shore fishermen, it is the best spot in the lake to shore fish.
The Middle
You can fish the middle on all kinds of days and it is more active for metal(triple teasers, roaster tails and wedding rings). I like to start in the spring arm and troll through the middle all the way down to the dam avoiding the boat launch side of the lake. When you are directly across form the boat launch you can see mt. hood, grandma said "If I can't see mt. hood I can't catch a fish".
general rules
I only use ford fenders or a knockoff. If it is cloudy silver, if it is sunny gold. The last few trips I picked up a few split gold and silver and they have worked very well.
I use half a night crawler on a eagle claw #6 worm hook with 24inches of 6lb leader, they have a nice offset and if you are having a hard time hooking them you can take your needle nose pliers and open them up a bit. You can use metal but if you do you might never hook a brook trout, which I prefer.
I don't used weight in clear lake, it is far to shallow and spinners are running $9.00 these days.
Overall this is a great place to take the family to fish, camp and swim.
, then we started cutting the herring and putting them on the hooks. Before you know it we were all fishing. It was foggy and the bar was closed. We trolled between the jetties for about an hour and was nothing. We went over and checked the traps, they were full of baby crabs eatting our bait, bummer. We rebaited what we could and off we went to fish. The bar had open while we were doing the traps so we slowly motored out to the bouy. When we got out there we saw a boat upside down. We called 911 and they said the people were ok and they would send the Coastgaurd. We saw them coming and we went back to fishing. I pointed the boat to the North and started trolling. Around we went and didn't get a thing, then we saw a boat in front of us get one but it was not a keeper. I looped us around about three times then we headed in for lunch. We grabbed the traps and still only babies with us out of bait. After lunch we headed straight up the the ghost hole and trolled the top of it. Lots of fish were jumping in the 8 to 10 foot depth, seals might have been the cause of that. As soon as we got a good troll and cleared the grass it was bam bam "fish on". He fought a bit then he rolled over and wrapped himself in the line, he was done without a chance. I reeled him up and made a possitive ID on him then clubbed him, "good night". After that chinook was put awaywe restarted and when we got to the end of our hole I started to turn and boom pole went down. Jason passed the pole to his son and he brought that fish up. I netted the fish and snapped the line at the same time, but after I IDed the fish it had to go back in the water, nexttime. We trolled back towards the dock and headed home. I think it was a time thing. Our method was the same as we use anywere just a bit less weight and fresh or frozen herring plug cut.
