Fishing Jasper Lake

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Fishing Jasper Lake

“Where did you catch those nice big brook (char) trout?” the fellow asked as he watched us clean them.

“Out there, in the lake,” my friend Greg said in return as he motioned yonder with his arm.

“No you didn’t,” the guy stated, “those trout didn’t come here from Riley Lake! Probably from a beaver pond?”

We then chuckled a bit to ourselves, but stuck to our previous statement, as the fellow turned in a gruff and mumbled something under his breath and left the lake shore. With big grins across our faces, we continued cleaning our big brookies. Would we have told the stranger where we actually caught the nice fish? I doubt that. Most certainly though, the stranger knew Riley Lake only contained rainbows. And if we had decided to say anything about the whereabouts of our catch, it probably more than likely would have been, “Jasper Lake”.

Jasper Lake was our name given to any fishing “hot spot.” It could be a pond, lake or even a stream. Simply, when Greg and I went fishing and came back with fish, we always told everyone we had been to Jasper Lake. Then, most folks would say, “I’ve heard that’s good fishing there.” More often than not however, people would just say, oh, where is that at?” And Greg would reply, “near jasper Creek!” And even though Jasper Lake was just a fictitious name, it became a popular spot among those who talked of fishing but never went, around the cafe where Greg and I worked back in the 70s.

The little pond, where we actually caught the bif brookies from, lay in a little cup of hills north of Arlington in the Puget Sound area. Cedar stumps protruded there from its brackish waters, reeds and grasses hugged the shoreline, and tall fir trees grew thick beyond its borders. Fresh water shrimp swam in its depths, beaver were usually seen and a bear or two from time to time, the big fat brook trout lurked within. There was an old raft that had a stump for a seat we used in our fishing. Seldom was the pond visited by others even though a road ran right by it. Folks just passed it by. It was and is still there. A Jasper Lake indeed!

As usually, when we fished for brookies, we used flies: a professor or a yellow gray hackle. The line was usually sinking about weight #6 and a 9 foot leader tapered to about a 2 lb. tippet was used. Our rods were about 9 feet and fiberglass back then. When we fished for trout, we did not practice catch & release, but we did let a lot go to grow up bigger. And anything we kept, especially brrokies were 14 inches and over. We were always steadfast in the belief that where applicable, there was nothing wrong with keeping nice big trout to eat, wild or not. Besides, we did not kill our limit most of the time, we limited our kill, enjoying them at the diner table. “Words to fish by!” To us, eating a fish prepared right was exquisite, plus good for you, especially from any place called, “Jasper Lake.”

Ken James McLeod

published by The Reel News
Apr. 1999