Monday, October 23, 2006

East Lake





Last Saturday the Central Oregon Flyfishers club had an outing to East Lake and I went along. East Lake is one of two lakes inside the Newberry Caldera - what's left of a huge volcano that erupted in a particularly violent fashion a long time ago.

The lake shore was filled with dead Kokanee salmon. They had finished their spawning and life cycles. The birds were having a feast.

East Lake is at about 6,500 feet and it was about 28 degrees went we lauched the boat at about 9 am. That's frost on the ground in the first photo.

The water temperature was cold as well, about 48 degrees. That's below the range that trout stay active in, so we moved around until we found a spot where an underwater hot spring warmed the water enough to get the fish moving.

The second photo is of fellow club member and passenger Bob with a nice brown trout he caught. The last photo is me with my brown. We got a couple of rainbows as well. All in all a good way to spend a cold but clear fall day.