Caples Lake: Beautiful and stuffed with trout!
We decided on Caples Lake because a) At 7,800 feet, it’s way above the heat of the Valley; b) It was a place we’d never been; and c) It was supposedly stuffed with trout.
Here’s what we found…
On the way up, we thought we’d maybe made a fatal error, considering our fowl weather gear consisted of shorts and flip-flops. Hey, it was 100 degrees were we were coming from!
Did you bring the rain gear???
It actually poured for about half an hour as we approached Caples, but the rain quit just as we arrived. We did have some nice overcast skies for a few hours, which we figured would help the bite…
Perfect fishing conditions!
Well, it may have helped the bite…if we could find one. For the first couple hours, everything seemed perfect: The weather was right and we graphed lots of fish, yet me only managed to troll up one dinky rainbow. At least the scenery was ridiculously good!
As VinMan said: We've been skunked in places a lot less scenic than this!
We even gave the trolling a rest and tried a little uneventful shore casting at the inlet stream…
Sure looked fishy, but...
Just when all the rumors of the lake being loaded with trout seemed like B.S., the skies brightened, the wind kicked up and the bite went white-hot. The fish were not the monsters we’d heard about…not even close. But they were suddenly on the snap!
Not exactly Hawg of the Month material, but a biter's a biter!
We caught a bunch of skinny planter browns that were probably dumped last fall, some freshly-released rountails and a few hold-over rainbows that had some of their fins growing back…
At least he didn't arrive by truck earlier this morning!
So, the size was definitely not there, but hey…we were enjoying an evening away from home, catching fish and then the sunset kicked into high gear…
That's what I'm talking about!
Nothing wrong with a little Alpenglow!
Then, just as the sun dropped behind the dam and the “magic hour” was set to begin, the bite mysteriously dropped off to nothing. At dark, we cruised back to camp, chowed down by the fire and crashed out. The next morning, we were at the new EID boat launching facility a little too early as it turns out…
We learned the hard way that the gate doesn't open until 6 AM...
No matter, considering the bite picked right up where it had left off the night before…Deadsville! The first boat on the water, first thing in the morning, but nada. Zip. Zilch. But then, as the sun got higher and the skies blued…
The bite came back on again…
Like turning on a switch, the rainbows and browns startted gobbling our crawlers agian!
The browns got the memo, too…
Still no monsters, but a few decent fish in the mix.
All too soon it was time to go back to the new EID launch and…eventually, the real world.
The new EID Ramp is sweet!
Though it was a quick trip, we thoroughly enjoyed our mission to Caples. It’s a beautiful, user-friendly sized lake…with a few mysteries yet to be unscrambled. While the size of the fish this trip wasn’t much to get excited about, the numbers were definitely there, which made us think about taking the kids on the next trip.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
On Sept. 20th & 21st myself and my buddy Al Martin fished Caples at the Davis creek inlet. I caught three trout that were 3 plus pounds and two that were over 5 pounds off the shore with rainbow power bait. This is the second time I have driven to Caples from central Oregon in the last five weeks. I plan to make one more trip down before the end of the season. What a great lake to fish.
Thanks for the story! Caples is a great palce to fish! I have been going there for the last 20 years. Just like you said the bite turns off and on like someone thru a switch. I have caught many larger size fish there. The scenery is just awesome. The campground across the hiway is pretty nice also. I highly recomend Caples. The kids have a great time there also.
JD, Thanks for the story, when I last saw you in Tahoe I drove home this way for the first time and was blown away with the scenery of the Hope Valley, West Carson River and Capels Lake. This is some pretty country I will have to give it a try thanks for the report and website.
Mike B.