Ed Wickersham of Vancouver simply doesn’t grasp the nuances of trout fishing, at least in lakes.
Show him fine fishing instruments such as a Needlefish, an Apex, a hoochie, a Smile blade or a tiny Spin-N-Glo and he lumps them together as “whiz bangs.”
Let’s face it: He’s unsophisticated.
Wickersham once was labeled “an effete, snooty I-5 fly fisherman.”
Well, that’s half correct.
He’s a fly fisherman and only lives a couple of miles west of Interstate 5 near the Clark County Fairgrounds.
A retired law enforcement officer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wickersham is not effete or snooty. He can be detailed (well, quite detailed) in his explanations. He’s also a longtime member of the Clark-Skamania Flyfishers.
Anyhow, this column is about his lack of respect for trout gear used by the common people.
Now, you can buy an Apex or a Needlefish or a Mack’s Smile Blade spinner at most any decent sporting goods store. We don’t have to go to a specialty shop.
Somehow, a couple of years ago, the topic of Coldwater Lake came up in one of my discussions with Wickersham, most likely a side conservation while waiting for yet another salmon management meeting to begin.
Coldwater Lake was created in May 1980, when the eruption of Mount St. Helens created a natural dam at the outlet of Coldwater Creek.
The lake is about 750 acres. The Forest Service built a small, but nice, boat ramp and restrooms at the lower end of Coldwater Lake.
Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife stocked Coldwater Lake once, back in the 1980s, and decided to manage the lake as a quality trout water.
The lake is not stocked, but depends on natural reproduction by the fish. There’s rainbow and cutthroat trout.
No bait allowed
Coldwater is open year-round with a daily catch limit of one trout at least 16 inches. Internal combustion engines are prohibited. Selective gear rules also apply, which means single, barbless hooks and no use of bait.
Wickersham invited me several times to fish with him at Coldwater. It never happened until a couple of weeks ago.
He had fished Coldwater Lake several times before.
Everyone I’ve ever seen fishing at Coldwater Lake, while hiking Lakes trail No. 211 along its shore, was fly fishing.
I anticipated getting humbled. Then again, a trout is trout. It just seemed to me the same lures and presentations that will catch them at Swift Reservoir ought to work at Coldwater. Yeah, those are hatchery trout at Swift, but we catch native trout there, too.
So, game on.
Wickersham brought three fly rods. He brought several boxes of flies, which all look alike except some were big, some were small.
I wanted him to fish with a Royal Coachman or a Muddler Minnow. Those are the only two patterns I can actually name.
He did not fish either. He fished something called a Peacock Willie, which sounds like the name you’d give to a poodle.
I started out with a silver Needlefish with red mottling trolled behind a flame red Flashlite attractor. I had a couple of hits early, but did not hook the fish. My concern was that without the lure being tipped with a piece of corn, a Gulp! maggot or a bit of worm I’d get hit, but not hook up.
But soon enough, we both starting catching trout.
I got a snippet of video of him catching a trout and referring to me as a “gear-chunking cretin.” I offered him lures, and the chance to reform. His response was “never.”
Some of the rainbow were as small as 5 inches or so. We caught several in 12-inch range, but no 16-inchers, which I doubt we’d have kept anyhow.
We rowed and let the wind push us to the upper end of the lake, then used an electric motor to troll back down.
Nip-and-tuck contest
It was a nip-and-tuck contest, neither of us getting more than two fish ahead of the other. For the trip back down the lake, I switched to a frog-colored Needlefish behind a Baby Cowbell flasher.
Changing to the greenish Needlefish was Wickersham’s suggestion and it outperformed the silver-red Needlefish.
“What have these fish ever seen in here that resembles that shiny thing?” he asked.
I guess that’s as close to “matching the hatch” as you can get using thin pieces of metal as lures.
We were closing in on the boat ramp and the rain was starting. Wickersham was two fish ahead as time was running out.
He urged me to put less line out, as the lake was getting shallower.
It was sage advice, as the green frog Needlefish caught four more trout, almost as fast as we could release fish and get the line back in the water.
At the boat ramp, the final tally was 15 trout for me, 13 for Ed.
Or, as he said in an email the next day, “whiz bangs rule.”
