I would love to visit this lake, as I have fished it in the distant past.

I am curious about what the current pass conditions are and if the lake is fly fishable yet.

Rob

Friend of mine, Roger, says that lake should be breaking up on the ice by now and quite cold. Long drive though to find out. What about contacting WDFW?

I found the White Pass WSDOT camera, (http://traffic.wsdot.wa.gov/sno-info/white.htm) and see a little dirty snow along the road side, but everything else seems clear.

So who's gonna be the first to run out, possibly wet a line, and report back?

Ron,

Do you fish Leech much? I've had some fun trips up there and also one "learning experience" on last year's 4th of July trip.

I haven't fished that lake since about 78 or 79. I remember quite a foggy, rainy day when the fish were hitting a damsel nymph pattern on a sinking line quite well for my brother, but my sink tip could not reach them.

I would love to go try them out soon.

Oaky ZF, I'll bite. What was your "learning experience"? Or is it a secret too....?

My "learning experience" was a case of being a little hard headed.

I fished it one Labor Day and dry flies were working great. Also other normal flies worked too. It seemed any dry would work for me if I threw it along the reeds.

Next year I fished it 4th of July and started out with the "usual suspects".. leeches, damsels, drys, etc... and only landed two fish in two days of fishing it.

I put that down to brookies being moody and the bite being off.

Met this one guy up ther I'd talked to the year before and he said.. nope.. they're biting like crazy.

Turned out they wanted a tiny little #22 parachute to match the tiny chronies hatching. I thought the tiny chronies were just "noise" and the fish would want bigger flies.

That's my learning experience.

Thanks. I've had very similar experiences. Sometimes I'm just too stubborn to search around for what really may work. My only luck at Leech was a couple of smaller brookies late in the afternoon.

There's this one guy out of Packwood (I think) that fishes Leech real regular. He's got a canoe with "outriggers" on it made from 5 gallon propane bottles. Very easy to recognize.

He gave me one of his little flies and I wondered how he could see it to wrap the parachute hackle.

Said that was the fly that worked for him thru the summer and he'd catch 30-40 fish an evening.

I'll be back up there again this year.

Last year we went up there for 4th of July and got snowed on one morning. The whole weekend was cold and windy.. but when it snowed we left for home.

I want to go back this year and try out the little flies on my 3 wt. I think that would be fun.

My friend and flyfishing mentor says that as of couple of weeks ago lake still had some ice on it. Not a lot though. He says that lake is best fished at end of June and July. Suppose you could do ice fishing there with chronies if you are desperate though.

My preference would be to fish it somewhere during the middle of August to the middle of September.

I will try it again during the summer this year... but I have a big deck rebuild and house siding project awaiting me for the "dry season".

Call Gary Brault at the Toutle River Fly Shop in Toutle. He keeps close tabs on the lakes in the area. Also, try dragging a yellow bugger or a yellow with grizzly hackle. Worked great the two times I've been there. Wow, never seen skeeters like they have up there except in AK!!