Boat Ride Dworshak Reservoir

A beautiful sunny day means it is time for a boat ride on Dworshak Reservoir. I meant my boat Captain Duane at 0800am in Orofino. He was taking his boat today as a shake down cruise for our pending trip to Brownlee Reservoir in a few weeks. We of course brought the fishing poles along just incase the bass decided that they wanted to go for a boat ride. Minutes late we were at the marina unloading the boat.The gentlemen in another boat loading at the ramp announced that the reservoir w

as 185 feet down from full pool. It was the lowest that I had ever seen the reservoir. Duane motored away from the launch heading towards Merry's Bay. It was a beautiful day and the lake was very calm.

We motored slow

ly around the bay looking at ground which was usually under water during a normal year (even at low water level). We looked for fishing gear that might have been lost

as we went along. After a while we realized that any

fishing gear lost dur

ing the normal full pool would be at least 100 feet above the current water level. I spotted one fishing line but a quick check with the binoculars didn't reveal any fishing rod. It was a "LONG" ways up the very steep and muddy bank. I choose not to investigate any further.

A quick check of the dam showed that there was a lot of it exposed. The Corps of Engineers dock which was usually at the east end of the dam was not in pla

ce. The water must be too low for it to be used and it was not in place yet.

We then motored up the reservoir for several miles to the entrance of the Canyon Creek drainage. It was amazing to see bare ground where there was usually water!

We got the fishing poles out at the very mouth of the creek. The water temperature was 47 degrees! Very cold! The dass would not be very active in this cold water. Duane had brough along a supply of fresh worms...5 of them to be exact. He quickly put them to work. He sold me one for 50 cents. I wonder how much I owe him for worms borrowed already. Oh well....he knows that i will pay him ....someday! We quickly discovered that while the bas were not active the rainbow trout found our offerings quite to their liking. We soon had 9 flopping fish up to 14 inches long flopping in the fish bucket. Yours truly forgot to take a picture of them. They would have made a great photo to end the blog with! Well use your imagination and I will try to remember to take a photo the next trip of those that didn't get away!