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Watch Lake (70 Mile)

3K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  TangleMaster 
#1 ·
Hey everyone,

I went up to Watch Lake, which is directly beside Green Lake in 70 mile, in the middle of May, I believe the 18,19,20 weekend. We caught a couple little fish, biggest I would say about 14” 1 pound 5 ounce maybe?

I was wondering if anyone has had any luck there before? I am going back up next weekend and am going to be bringing my chironomid set up and might chuck that in to see what happens. When I was there I was just trolling with olive/brown leeches and a light pink shrimp pattern, I believe a size 12 hook. I caught 4 on the shrimp and my father and sister caught 2 on the leeches. I was trolling at a medium pace with full sink line (about 9 feet down).

Others that were there tried worms and other flies but no luck.

Please post your previous trips and catches and hopefully we can get something going as I have not been able to find very much information on Watch Lake.

Tight Lines! 👍🏻

Travis
 
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#2 ·
Hey all,

Just got back from Watch. Trolled flies around for a bit, didn’t fish as much as I wanted to because of the rain but I did still get out. My buddy caught 2 on an adams fly and the same fish twice on a May fly within about 20 minutes lol. I caught all three of my fish on a maroon leech. Fish were probably between 1 and 1.5 pounds, 12-15 inches.

They were not biting very much, couple other guys in our group caught some on worms and flat fish. What surprised me the most is that one guy was trolling a chironomid and hooked into atleast a 3 pounder but lost it 20 feet from the boat. His wife also hooked into probably a 2.5 pounder and lost it right beside the boat as well. I witnessed both.

On a side note there were a ton of shrimp, especially in the weedy areas that were less than 6 feet deep, atleast from what we could see haha. I did not get to try a leech as I didn’t tie any up before I left.

Will be going up again in the fall to try the fall fishing, good luck to anyone else who goes up! Beautiful lake with some nice scenery, but be prepared for that darn cariboo weather lol.

Tight lines!
 
#3 · (Edited)
My first post of which I hope to be many! I have been fly fishing since my teens (now mid 40's) and I feel like I finally have amassed some knowledge to give back.

To add to the OP's comments, we fished Watch over May long 2019 and here are my thoughts. There is a fair bit of publication on the web about Watch, with much of it hyping it up as a fishery that can produce large fish. I'm sure there are some decent sized fish in there but not many. Watch is a product of the fisheries "overstocking program" as I like to call it, a lake intended for family fishing where they saturate it with too many fish per hectare, surpassing it's productivity capabilities to sustain fish growing bigger. They put 40k fish/year in there and not enough come out because people keep less fish when they are very small. The result is exactely what the OP described. Its was fun for my kids as we landed a fish a cast for hours and hours but they were mostly <1lbs with a couple in the 1.5lbs range. We had 3 parties with us with a combined 80 years of fly fishing experience, combing almost every inch of that lake and everyone had the same results, as did everyone else we talked to on the lake that weekend. What perplexes me is that this May they started stocking the lake with triploids, but didn't reduce the quantities. Watch is a nutrient rich, productive lake that could be an amazing fishery if they continue to stock triploids with a 30-50% reduction in stocking quantity; a solution I feel could apply to many lakes in the province.

Anyhow, the scenery ia beautiful, the area is lovely to explore and if you want to take your family to a spot guaranteed to catch fish and enjoy a relaxing weekend, Watch Lake is great. On a side not, we did some horseback riding with Watch Lake Lodge and it was by far the best riding experience we had seen. Several hours at a very cheap rate to some amazingly scenic spots.

Disclaimer: the above is just my opinion and purely anecdotal. Others may have had different experiences recently or disagree with my assessment - which I am totally okay with!

Hope this helps...Tight lines..
 
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