Buzzard and Campbell Lakes

Noah, Jana and I headed over to Rock Creek Campground outside of Twisp over Memorial Day weekend, in hopes for the same quality lake fishing that we had last year. We met up with Noah's parents Friday evening. We decided on the same pattern as last year and headed up to Buzzard in the morning on Saturday. The weather was overcast with occasional drizzle. Surprisingly, there was hardly anyone there, compared to last year when there were quite a few people on the lake. Soon after we started fishing, we realized why. The fishing was dead. Not even a hit between the three of us. There was another guy that got on the lake and had nothing either. He got off the lake before us. We trolled various Willies, Buggers, and also tested out cronies to no avail. We decided to bag it a little early. Either there were actually no fish in the lake, or we really sucked. We were hoping it wasn't the later, and decided to find out by fishing Campbell for a few hours that evening. After an early dinner, we arrived at Campbell around 6pm. The weather cleared up nicely, with partly sunny skies all evening. We ended up having the lake to ourselves, which was good because it can feel crowded given its small size. Now the big question remained -- were there any fish? We answered that question within about 10 minutes on the water. Each of us landed fish with no hesitation. Whew! We had new life! We didn't suck. We concluded Buzzard was indeed a dead lake this year. For the next few hours, we had countless grabs and landed almost 20 between us. Jana only landed one (her first one), but had about 20 grabs. If she would have converted on half of those, she would have crushed Noah and I. Noah ended up having quite a few grabs and landed a handful or so. Those bastards were tricky to keep on the hook. My conversion ratio was fairly good and ended up landing around 8 or 9. Most fish seemed to be stocked and ranged from 12 to 16 inches. They were very good fighters. We suspected that there weren't many hold-overs from last year. Jana fished the G-Willie exclusively. Noah fished a damsel nymph and the standard Willie. I fished just the standard Willie. All of them produced, but the Willies ruled king. The next day, Noah and I decided to hit Campbell in the afternoon again. This time, I had the crappy conversion ratio, landing about 4, but loosing about 15. Noah held consistent and landed just over a handful. Again, the damsel and Willies were the ticket. 12 to 16 inch fish were the standard again. All and all, a good trip, which also included a pretty sweet hail storm, lightning bolts, and a fair share of rain along the way. 'Till next time, Josh