Merrill Lake, Washington
Hex of Darkness-Mugging of Eagles
(Originally Published In Northwest Fly Fishing magazine)
By Terry W. Sheely
If I wasn’t looking out across the dead-flat surface of the hottest Hex lake in the state I’d be worried: full moon, bouncing barometer, collapsing high pressure system, July cold, spit of drizzle and that’s before I get wing whacked by the attack eagle.
If nothing else, Merrill Lake is 344 acres of southwest Washington surprises and exclamation points. I came here in the middle of summer on the edge of an unusually cool evening to fish Merrill’s legendary night hatch of Hexagenias, succulent bat-size mayflies that drive trout crazy. And what I find is a lightly fished lake with a well-balanced trout population and a dozen other hatch options that are rarely talked about, some every bit as dynamic as the attention-grabbing Hexes.
When I firm up this trip with Castle Rock fly guide Jeff Traver ( www.Stoneflyguideservice.com ) he reports the night bite is running strong, surface strikes are scary loud, Hexagenia mayflies are blowing off the water like cottonwood down and trout guys are talking 3 and 5 pounds.
When I get there the following week, Jeff is shaking his head. Cold snap shut down the bite two days ago, roller-coaster barometer scattered the fish, and there is that eagle to deal with. But, he says, we’ll catch some trout—how many, how big, he doesn’t want to guess.
“Never been skunked here,” he says and throws in an optimistic grin for my benefit then skids the drift boat off the trailer and into the lake at the Washington Department of Natural Resources gravel launch. The ramp is in the only developed campground on the lake, a primitive place with a dozen scattered tent spots and a couple of trailer slabs. Otherwise, Merrill is gloriously un-residentialized except for a mini-clump of summer houses tucked out of sight up the bank in the conifers and bigleaf maples of south bay.
The steep shore surrounding the lake is canopied with trees and revegetating clear cuts largely uncompromised by man-made improvements. Most of the shoreline is thickly overhung with branches, troubled by fallen trees and shielded by brush that makes it nearly impossible for wading or walking anglers to backcast. Float tubes are a viable option, small boats better options and there are a few places where tough fishers can bull their way to open banks. Realistically though, it’s impossible to fish this fly-only lake effectively without flotation.
At times any area on the lake can break loose with bugs and fish, and Merrill regulars equip their flotation with long oars or electric motors that will get them from dead water to erupting action as fast as the law allows—5 mph.
A powerful two-blade, battery-juiced electric is snugged to the transom of our drift boat.
The lake is located at an elevation of 1,541 feet in the headwaters of the Kalama River. Most of it is on DNR land just downhill from Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and uphill from Hwy. 503, the Lewis River Road. Timber companies own most of what’s not public.
Merrill has the arrogant look of a fly fishing gem; clear water, shallow at both ends, wide across the center and 77 feet deep in the middle. The north end is studded with off-shore islands, rocks, seasonal shallows, and clusters of willows that can grow fat bugs.
As soon as the mountain lake is accessible, usually in late March, it begins to produce snow fly (midge) hatches, some BWOs and sporadic mayflies. Typically, the trout are prowling in the warmer shallows, near the edges, just under the surface and feeding opportunistically.
Really decent fishing starts in April and by May you will hear of catches of two to five pound browns and ‘bows. June is one of the best months for Triploids with 2 pound planters and 5 pound holdovers.
The optional bite on early hatches of callibaetis, midges and caddis holds up well into July when the hex action starts a run that will go into September. And in September and October the lake is a lonesome place where big fish start feeding up and are spotted by sight fishers as they cruise just below the surface suckering to marabou leeches, streamers, Woolly Buggers, Woolly Worms and ant patterns.
Oddly, for a lake as potentially productive as Merrill, fishing pressure is consistently light, even during the best fishing of summer.
Traver has been fishing Merrill since he was a boy hiking in with his father, and he now guides on it several weeks of every year. He is convinced the north end is the best water for Hex happenings but while our outing is still early he wants to check out the shallow edges in the south bay for mayfly or caddis dry-fly possibilities.
A rain squall that has been hanging on a hill in the distance, breaks off, sweeps past the lake and disappears into the mists and trees. The sun breaks out and lights us up. We cast dries around the shoreline of the bay, around old stumps and over 10 and 20 feet of gin clear water. With sunlight on the clear water, and small flies we use 10-foot leaders, with 6X fluorocarbon tippets to minimize disturbance. Later, in the dark, we’ll be able to use shorter, heavier leaders that will handle the big flies.
Following Jeff’s fish guide advice, I throw a gaudy yellow Hex Cripple and fish it on the surface and sometimes just under. Jeff goes smaller with surface-riding Trudes and Royal Wulffs. We draw a couple of half-hearted dink strikes from water without rise forms, spook a couple of 15-inch trout, give up and head north, passing the ramp, two float tubers, a pontoon boat, and an island to a spot where Jeff says the bottom is channeled with braids from the creek. We drop anchor, re-rig with big yellow Cripples and watch for rises in the darkening.
And watch for the pirate eagle.
We are not disappointed.
Jeff targets a rise at 30 feet, hooks a cutthroat, plays it out, sweeps it into the soft mesh of a knotless landing net and holds it in the water to recover. I lean over the side to snap a photo and never hear the roar of a six-foot wingspan. The eagle crashes past my shoulder, hits my arm with its wingtip, ticks the gunwale and stretches wickedly hooked yellow talons for the cutthroat still in the short-handled net. Jeff plunges the net and fish into the water and ducks. I swear the eagle flew between my guide and his up-pointed rod and ducked the slack leader running to the fish in Jeff’s hand.
Among Merrill Lake regulars the resident bald eagles, a pair of them, are almost as famous as the hex hatch. More than one unaware, first-time float tuber has been terrorized and mugged by these pirate eagles ripping hooked trout from wet hands. The nesting pair keeps watch over the lake looking out from strategically positioned trees and they attack in turns. The pair has evolved a perfect timing gliding in from behind the distracted angler and hitting the hapless trout either as it’s being brought to hand or released and swimming tired.
The pirate thief misses Jeff and his cutthroat, banks away and shrills at us. Later we see it take a silvery trout as it is released by the guy in the pontoon boat. Merrill Lake’s bald eagles are not aggressive. They are way beyond that.
The closest community to the lake is Cougar with 100 unincorporated residents, a couple of stores, good grill, comfortable bar and RV parks. It flanks Hwy. 503 just seven tenths of a mile east of the Merrill Lake turnoff onto FS 81.
FS 81 is paved and climbs 4.7 miles uphill to the lake. To reach the junction of Highway 503 and FS 81 from the I-5 at Exit 21 in Woodland, anglers enjoy 23 miles of twists and turns along the Lewis River to the northeast end of Yale Reservoir. If you drive into Cougar, buy a coffee to go at the Cougar Bar & Grill and turn around—you’ve gone .7 miles too far.
At the launch, bolted to stout 4 x 4s is a wooden sign polished to high amber gloss, proclaiming Merrill to be “one of Washington Premier Fly Lakes” and just so there will be no questions it offers a recap of the rules: fly-fishing only, barbless hooks, catch-and-release, no internal combustion motors, 5 mph limit. Washington Discover Pass required-10 bucks.
The Clark-Skamania Fly Fishers (www.clark-skamania-flyfishers.org) of Vancouver have taken this treasure and its maintenance under their protective wing and ride close herd on what’s happening. They can be a good source of timely information.
While it’s legal to fish the lake year-round, it can be snowbound and iced in mid-winter when the midges and snowflies are out and the campground is sometimes gated until mid-March. If it’s gated, the walk-in is not far and it’s downhill, for anglers willing to pack boats uphill on the return. I once watched two middle-aged diehards carry a canoe and packs of fishing gear from the lake to the gate and it wasn’t pretty. But they said the fishing had been worth it. For a couple of years the campground was closed for repairs and during that closure I had no problem parking on the road and packing an inflated float tube to the lake and back.
Float tubers and boaters without electric motors might bear in mind that the dominant wind blows from the south during the morning and switches around to the north by evening. That’s also something to consider when figuring out which way the bugs are being blown. Prime water is everywhere. Some anglers favor the south, others the west; Jeff likes the north. Try it all until you find what’s working.
While I’m reading the sign, I hear a shout from across the lake near a peninsula on the west side where a curl of campfire smoke reaches into the air. A float tuber is into a good fish. His camp is tucked into the trees and bushes on the far-side of the lake from the developed DNR site. There are flat spots on the west and north sides, Jeff says, where fishermen bring in camps by boat, roll out their sleeping bags in wilderness solitude and fish at their doorsteps.
Jeff hands me a fly of darkness to tie on, a No. 12 Cripple, big, gaudy and yellow. I’m using a 4 weight, Jeff a 5, both with floating lines, and there are backup spools with sink tips—just in case.
In the still water, a hundred feet off the bank, vibrating on the surface is our first bright yellow Hex, a fat seductive trout treat bullseyed in spreading concentric rings. We watch it for several minutes, holding our rods, waiting on the gulp, but nothing eats it. “Hmmm. Let’s try the south end,” Jeff suggests. The hatching Hex, looking exactly like a quivering Doug Swisher elk hair Paradrake, and is still fluttering and uneaten when we move beyond sight. It is not a good sign, like dropping a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk and nobody picks it up.
Unless you’ve fished here, the stories and legends could lead you to believe that Merrill is a one-dimensional lake of night hexes and gulpers. It is that certainly but much more.
The lake has naturally reproducing rainbows, browns from earlier plants, and native coastal cutthroat and is usually fattened once a year in April with around 300 sterile Triploid rainbows that average a pound but there are always some larger in the plant. This spring Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) added 234 one-pound triploid ‘bows to the surviving catch-and-release holdovers of past years.
Anglers will find that the combination of natural reproduction and hatchery enhancements packs Merrill with a lot of trout in the foot-long range, and surprisingly high numbers of fish that are two feet nose to tail. A 24-inch trout will push five pounds. Jeff says that many of the browns are 1½ pounds or better and that, “It’s not uncommon to get a triploid or big brown in the five-pound range.”
To me, five-pound trout are always uncommon, but tonight I’m willing.
The basic Hex pattern assortment, according to Mark Bachman at the Fly Fishing Shop in Welches, is dominated by light yellow colors for body, thread and abdomen.
These flies, Hexagenia limbata are the largest of all mayflies, and a mouthful of solid protein for trout. Nymphs
are 1-3/8 inches long and adults will stretch out to two inches. A Grand Slam entrée in a single bite.
That these giants hatch primarily in the dark is an adrenalin soaking bonus for fly fishers. We stand in boats, blind in the night, holding rod and drooping line, straining to see anything, listening for gulpers, poised like bats, imagining audio target lines lasering to horrible-crunching rises that sound like buckets of anchors dropped overboard, or more likely a monster trout sucking stars from the sky.
And when you hear it you cast blindly in that direction. Cast and wait and hope that in the invisibility your short leader didn’t tangle, the fly turned over and that the trout will take. And when that brown or rainbow sucks down a natural somewhere near where you think your fly floats your reflexes go off and you set the hook in air and curse. It takes discipline to wait for the tug, to wait for the line to slam tight, to wait for an honest hookup.
When the Merrill hex hatch is in full eruption, it’s almost always on a warm night in July or August with steady high barometer, Jeff tells me. On such nights the sounds of crashing trout carry like detonations in the night. “Wait until you feel the weight,” he warns me. “Patience. Don’t strike at the sound,” which is easy to say and almost impossible to accomplish.
“Sometimes the trout, especially the bigger trout, try to sink the fly before eating it,” he reasons, “they’ll hit it and drive it under then turn and gulp it. Never strike until you feel the weight pulling. Never.”
A trout is feeding, three evenly spaced splatters in a row. I throw where I think the fourth will be and grip the rod hard. When you throw a giant yellow mayfly into blackness you may be picking a fight with a 10-inch wannabe or a 5-pound Triploid. Never know. The cast is decent and the Cripple lands where I think the trout is headed. I pull out the slack, put the rod tip in the water and stop breathing. The next sound I hear is a trout slurping in the dark on the opposite side of the boat. Let it float, Jeff says, see if something else comes along. I exhale.
Night casting veterans at Merrill will bring leaders, shortened to five or six feet, 3X for stiffness to turn big flies, pre-tied with quick-change loops and knotted on patterns for quick replacements in the dark. Time counts when the Hex eruption is on, when tangles in the night are inevitable and fingers turn into thumbs. Quick change loops with pre-knotted flies are as necessary as night vision, headlamps and patient partners.
It is best, Jeff says, to bring a Hex fly box with rows of Nymphs on No. 4 TMC 200R hooks; Emergers (Cripples) on No. 8 TMCR 200; Duns (Paradrakes) on No. 8 TMC 100s; and Spinners on No. 8 TMC 100s.
Carry plenty of fly flotant and stock up on two-inch Cripples and Paradrakes—these are the quivering dry flies for night work, the oversized fodders that transform selective sippers into gluttonous gulpers. The Merrill Hex hatch begins in early July and runs well into August, lasting six to eight weeks. How far into August it continues depends on weather. To center the Hex hatch plan to be on the water the last week in July, first week in August and to fish from just before dark until you want to quit.
Jeff and I were off the water by 11 p.m. but it was a weak hatch that night and when the hatch is running strong the action can last until well into early morning.
When the giant mayflies of darkness are not hatching, Merrill remains a fine trout option with respectable insect life. It produces callibaetis hatches, chironomids, small dark caddis (longhorn and northerns), damsels, midges and occasionally great shoreline hatches of reddish flying ants. A well-packed Merrill Lake fly box should also hold imitations of water boatmen, beetles, leeches, crayfish and sculpins—and a few fry-imitating streamers for just in case work.
Jeff recommends that for blind prospecting, especially during non-Hex periods, that fly casters bring dry assortments of Trudes and Royal Wulff patterns in size 14-16, elk hair caddis, blue-winged olives, alder flies and damsels. He adds a row of wets that include Wooly Buggers, seal buggers, nymphs and leeches in olive, purple or black. A gold bead head seems to add a touch of irrestiblity to leeches and buggers crawling on bottom.
Patterned fishing positions at Merrill fall into two levels: dries on the surface and trolling or wind drifted wets near bottom, with little reason to fish in the mid-depths. The accepted Merrill Lake wet fly trolling/drifting technique is to use sinking lines, tips and weighted flies (no split shot allowed) that will have patterns hugging bottom in 10 to 20 feet of water. It’s good to get a jump on the night bite by scratching the bottom an hour or two before sunset. Position over 10 feet of water, cast a weighted nymph or favorite wet and let it settle to the bottom. Sporadically lift the fly up and let it settle back as the boat or line drifts.
Hexagenia nymphs develop and hatch from burrows on mud or silted bottoms 10 to 40 feet down and when the surface water is dead still and free of concentric rings the depths are where we search for pre-rise trout that are likely feeding on nymphs and pupa emergers. There are also leeches, sculpins and small minnows along the bottom.
Typically, the real Hex action begins about a half hour before sunset, when trout begin slurping scatterings of surface shaking cripples and emergers, harbingers of the main hatch to come.
The more influential that the Hex hatches become to the lake’s trout feeding schedule the more that bite schedule slides toward late afternoon and into evening when Hexes are most active. The late bite will continue even when there is no hex hatch, and when trout are feeding on other flies such as smaller callibaetis or blue wing olives, caddis, damsels or midges, according to my guide. Late afternoons and evenings are consistently most productive for all insect patterns during the July-August hex activity. The exception is when gusty winds pepper the surface with floating ants or other terristerials. Whenever that happens, regardless of the hour, it triggers spontaneous surface feeding, Jeff says.
Little weed growth is available in Merrill that would concentrate chironomids, mayfly and caddis opportunities, a condition blamed on the natural lake’s dramatic water level fluctuations. Merrill is formed behind a porous rock slide across the outlet.It fills in winter and leaks all summer. By mid-summer, Jeff says, the lake can be 20 feet shallower than it is in spring, a radical drop that exposes and dehydrates tentative water weed development, and eliminates permanent beds. It also, however, bares the best structure, rocks, reefs, logs, and stream channels.
Lacking weeds to target, Merrill fishers work the flats under 10 to 20 feet of water where nymphs emerge from bottom silt or cling, to willows or fall from overhanging bushes. The lack of food-rich, sheltering weed beds also has a dramatic effect on the hatchery trout, Jeff says.
As the water level drops, food sources dry up, hatches deplete and by fall the fat triploids of early summer shrink into big-headed torpedoes. Mostly, Jeff says, it’s the stocked triploids that lose weight when the easy pickings are gone. Merrill’s natural browns, ‘bows and cutts are more resourceful, he says, and will turn to terrestrials, leeches, minnows and sculpins and rarely morph into torpedoes.
But that downsizing takes place weeks after the Hex hatch, long after the last mega mayfly is gulped in the night and Jeff says, ‘there’s still some five-pound browns and big ‘bows in here to catch.”
A fuzzy splotch of white begins to glow behind the clouds, a weak moon in a clouded night sky.
Jeff changes flies in the soft glow of a low flashlight and munches a candy bar.
I cast into the dark, settle the fly, take out the slack and twitch it repeatedly. In the blindness of my imagination, in the dark the big yellow fly with the elk hair wing, grizzly dyed hackle and moose hair tail is riding high on the surface tension and quivering with life.
It is irrestible.
I wait for the 5-pound brown to gulp.
And I make myself promise to wait for the weight.
Merrill Lake NOTEBOOK:
When:
Late March-October.
Hexagenia hatch peaks July-August.
Where:
Southwest Washington, Cowlitz County, 23 miles east of Woodland and five miles north of Cougar off Hwy 503 on FS Rd. 81.
Headquarters:
Small DNR campground at the lake, RV sites and cabins in Cougar and along Hwy. 503. The DNR Merrill Lake campground has 11 primitive tent sites and RV slabs, and a gravel ramp with good slope and plenty of parking. Primitive boat camping on lake shore. A $10 state Discover Pass is required to use DNR facilities and may be purchased online (www.discoverpass.wa.gov) or at retail licensing agencies. It is available along with groceries, eats and drinks at the
Cougar Bar and Grill, 360-238-5252,
Cougar RV Park and Campground
(http://cougarrv.net) with cabins and tent sites,
360-238-5224;
Lone Fir Resort
360-238-5210;
Regulations:
Open year-round. Fly-fishing only, barbless hooks, no more than two to a line, no line-attached weights, knotless nets only, catch-and-release, no internal combustion engines.
Appropriate Gear:
Small boat, canoe, float tube or pontoon. Oars and electric motors are allowed. Four, five or six weight rods, floating, full-sink, and intermediate lines. 3X tippets for night fishing, 7X tippets for daylight, flies with single barbless hooks.
Useful Fly Patterns:
Hexagenia (dun) paradrake, emerger (cripple), sizes 8-12; Hexagenia nymph size 4; Trudes and Royal Wulff sizes 12-16; marabou leeches, weighted, olive, purple and black; seal bugger, Woolly Bugger and Woolly Worm, weighted. black and olive size 8-10; Muddler, Adams and other callibaetis imitators; BWO and blue Damsel flies; snow (white and tan midges) flies; flying ants in black and red, dark caddis and alder fly.
Necessary accessories:
Dry fly floatant, leader sink, headlamp or night-vision red flashlight for late Hex hatch, pre-tied leaders with quick change loops and tied flies; knotless landing net, needle nose release pliers or forceps, polarized sunglasses, hat, layered clothing that will take you from warm afternoons to chilly mountain nights, electric trolling motor, anchor, mosquito repellent, eagle repellent.
Licenses:
Nonresident:
1-day $17.82; 2-days $24.36; 3-days $30.91; Annual $50.
Resident: 1-day $10.18; 2-day $13.46; 3-day $16.73;
Annual $24.
Washington Discover Pass, Daily $10;
Annual $30.
Fly Shops & Guides:
Jeff Traver,
Stonefly Guide Service, Castle Rock, WA,
www.stoneflyguideservice.com;
Email: [email protected];
360-431-2183;
Anglers Fly Shop, Woodland,
www.anglersworkshop.com,
360-225-6359;
Greased Line Fly Shoppe, Vancouver,
www.greasedline.com,
360-573-9383.
Maps/Information:
Washington Atlas & Gazetteer by DeLorme Mappping;
Gifford-Pinchot NF map;
Washington Lake Maps and Fishing Guide,
Amato Books, www.amatobooks.com;
By Terry W. Sheely
If I wasn’t looking out across the dead-flat surface of the hottest Hex lake in the state I’d be worried: full moon, bouncing barometer, collapsing high pressure system, July cold, spit of drizzle and that’s before I get wing whacked by the attack eagle.
If nothing else, Merrill Lake is 344 acres of southwest Washington surprises and exclamation points. I came here in the middle of summer on the edge of an unusually cool evening to fish Merrill’s legendary night hatch of Hexagenias, succulent bat-size mayflies that drive trout crazy. And what I find is a lightly fished lake with a well-balanced trout population and a dozen other hatch options that are rarely talked about, some every bit as dynamic as the attention-grabbing Hexes.
When I firm up this trip with Castle Rock fly guide Jeff Traver ( www.Stoneflyguideservice.com ) he reports the night bite is running strong, surface strikes are scary loud, Hexagenia mayflies are blowing off the water like cottonwood down and trout guys are talking 3 and 5 pounds.
When I get there the following week, Jeff is shaking his head. Cold snap shut down the bite two days ago, roller-coaster barometer scattered the fish, and there is that eagle to deal with. But, he says, we’ll catch some trout—how many, how big, he doesn’t want to guess.
“Never been skunked here,” he says and throws in an optimistic grin for my benefit then skids the drift boat off the trailer and into the lake at the Washington Department of Natural Resources gravel launch. The ramp is in the only developed campground on the lake, a primitive place with a dozen scattered tent spots and a couple of trailer slabs. Otherwise, Merrill is gloriously un-residentialized except for a mini-clump of summer houses tucked out of sight up the bank in the conifers and bigleaf maples of south bay.
The steep shore surrounding the lake is canopied with trees and revegetating clear cuts largely uncompromised by man-made improvements. Most of the shoreline is thickly overhung with branches, troubled by fallen trees and shielded by brush that makes it nearly impossible for wading or walking anglers to backcast. Float tubes are a viable option, small boats better options and there are a few places where tough fishers can bull their way to open banks. Realistically though, it’s impossible to fish this fly-only lake effectively without flotation.
At times any area on the lake can break loose with bugs and fish, and Merrill regulars equip their flotation with long oars or electric motors that will get them from dead water to erupting action as fast as the law allows—5 mph.
A powerful two-blade, battery-juiced electric is snugged to the transom of our drift boat.
The lake is located at an elevation of 1,541 feet in the headwaters of the Kalama River. Most of it is on DNR land just downhill from Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and uphill from Hwy. 503, the Lewis River Road. Timber companies own most of what’s not public.
Merrill has the arrogant look of a fly fishing gem; clear water, shallow at both ends, wide across the center and 77 feet deep in the middle. The north end is studded with off-shore islands, rocks, seasonal shallows, and clusters of willows that can grow fat bugs.
As soon as the mountain lake is accessible, usually in late March, it begins to produce snow fly (midge) hatches, some BWOs and sporadic mayflies. Typically, the trout are prowling in the warmer shallows, near the edges, just under the surface and feeding opportunistically.
Really decent fishing starts in April and by May you will hear of catches of two to five pound browns and ‘bows. June is one of the best months for Triploids with 2 pound planters and 5 pound holdovers.
The optional bite on early hatches of callibaetis, midges and caddis holds up well into July when the hex action starts a run that will go into September. And in September and October the lake is a lonesome place where big fish start feeding up and are spotted by sight fishers as they cruise just below the surface suckering to marabou leeches, streamers, Woolly Buggers, Woolly Worms and ant patterns.
Oddly, for a lake as potentially productive as Merrill, fishing pressure is consistently light, even during the best fishing of summer.
Traver has been fishing Merrill since he was a boy hiking in with his father, and he now guides on it several weeks of every year. He is convinced the north end is the best water for Hex happenings but while our outing is still early he wants to check out the shallow edges in the south bay for mayfly or caddis dry-fly possibilities.
A rain squall that has been hanging on a hill in the distance, breaks off, sweeps past the lake and disappears into the mists and trees. The sun breaks out and lights us up. We cast dries around the shoreline of the bay, around old stumps and over 10 and 20 feet of gin clear water. With sunlight on the clear water, and small flies we use 10-foot leaders, with 6X fluorocarbon tippets to minimize disturbance. Later, in the dark, we’ll be able to use shorter, heavier leaders that will handle the big flies.
Following Jeff’s fish guide advice, I throw a gaudy yellow Hex Cripple and fish it on the surface and sometimes just under. Jeff goes smaller with surface-riding Trudes and Royal Wulffs. We draw a couple of half-hearted dink strikes from water without rise forms, spook a couple of 15-inch trout, give up and head north, passing the ramp, two float tubers, a pontoon boat, and an island to a spot where Jeff says the bottom is channeled with braids from the creek. We drop anchor, re-rig with big yellow Cripples and watch for rises in the darkening.
And watch for the pirate eagle.
We are not disappointed.
Jeff targets a rise at 30 feet, hooks a cutthroat, plays it out, sweeps it into the soft mesh of a knotless landing net and holds it in the water to recover. I lean over the side to snap a photo and never hear the roar of a six-foot wingspan. The eagle crashes past my shoulder, hits my arm with its wingtip, ticks the gunwale and stretches wickedly hooked yellow talons for the cutthroat still in the short-handled net. Jeff plunges the net and fish into the water and ducks. I swear the eagle flew between my guide and his up-pointed rod and ducked the slack leader running to the fish in Jeff’s hand.
Among Merrill Lake regulars the resident bald eagles, a pair of them, are almost as famous as the hex hatch. More than one unaware, first-time float tuber has been terrorized and mugged by these pirate eagles ripping hooked trout from wet hands. The nesting pair keeps watch over the lake looking out from strategically positioned trees and they attack in turns. The pair has evolved a perfect timing gliding in from behind the distracted angler and hitting the hapless trout either as it’s being brought to hand or released and swimming tired.
The pirate thief misses Jeff and his cutthroat, banks away and shrills at us. Later we see it take a silvery trout as it is released by the guy in the pontoon boat. Merrill Lake’s bald eagles are not aggressive. They are way beyond that.
The closest community to the lake is Cougar with 100 unincorporated residents, a couple of stores, good grill, comfortable bar and RV parks. It flanks Hwy. 503 just seven tenths of a mile east of the Merrill Lake turnoff onto FS 81.
FS 81 is paved and climbs 4.7 miles uphill to the lake. To reach the junction of Highway 503 and FS 81 from the I-5 at Exit 21 in Woodland, anglers enjoy 23 miles of twists and turns along the Lewis River to the northeast end of Yale Reservoir. If you drive into Cougar, buy a coffee to go at the Cougar Bar & Grill and turn around—you’ve gone .7 miles too far.
At the launch, bolted to stout 4 x 4s is a wooden sign polished to high amber gloss, proclaiming Merrill to be “one of Washington Premier Fly Lakes” and just so there will be no questions it offers a recap of the rules: fly-fishing only, barbless hooks, catch-and-release, no internal combustion motors, 5 mph limit. Washington Discover Pass required-10 bucks.
The Clark-Skamania Fly Fishers (www.clark-skamania-flyfishers.org) of Vancouver have taken this treasure and its maintenance under their protective wing and ride close herd on what’s happening. They can be a good source of timely information.
While it’s legal to fish the lake year-round, it can be snowbound and iced in mid-winter when the midges and snowflies are out and the campground is sometimes gated until mid-March. If it’s gated, the walk-in is not far and it’s downhill, for anglers willing to pack boats uphill on the return. I once watched two middle-aged diehards carry a canoe and packs of fishing gear from the lake to the gate and it wasn’t pretty. But they said the fishing had been worth it. For a couple of years the campground was closed for repairs and during that closure I had no problem parking on the road and packing an inflated float tube to the lake and back.
Float tubers and boaters without electric motors might bear in mind that the dominant wind blows from the south during the morning and switches around to the north by evening. That’s also something to consider when figuring out which way the bugs are being blown. Prime water is everywhere. Some anglers favor the south, others the west; Jeff likes the north. Try it all until you find what’s working.
While I’m reading the sign, I hear a shout from across the lake near a peninsula on the west side where a curl of campfire smoke reaches into the air. A float tuber is into a good fish. His camp is tucked into the trees and bushes on the far-side of the lake from the developed DNR site. There are flat spots on the west and north sides, Jeff says, where fishermen bring in camps by boat, roll out their sleeping bags in wilderness solitude and fish at their doorsteps.
Jeff hands me a fly of darkness to tie on, a No. 12 Cripple, big, gaudy and yellow. I’m using a 4 weight, Jeff a 5, both with floating lines, and there are backup spools with sink tips—just in case.
In the still water, a hundred feet off the bank, vibrating on the surface is our first bright yellow Hex, a fat seductive trout treat bullseyed in spreading concentric rings. We watch it for several minutes, holding our rods, waiting on the gulp, but nothing eats it. “Hmmm. Let’s try the south end,” Jeff suggests. The hatching Hex, looking exactly like a quivering Doug Swisher elk hair Paradrake, and is still fluttering and uneaten when we move beyond sight. It is not a good sign, like dropping a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk and nobody picks it up.
Unless you’ve fished here, the stories and legends could lead you to believe that Merrill is a one-dimensional lake of night hexes and gulpers. It is that certainly but much more.
The lake has naturally reproducing rainbows, browns from earlier plants, and native coastal cutthroat and is usually fattened once a year in April with around 300 sterile Triploid rainbows that average a pound but there are always some larger in the plant. This spring Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) added 234 one-pound triploid ‘bows to the surviving catch-and-release holdovers of past years.
Anglers will find that the combination of natural reproduction and hatchery enhancements packs Merrill with a lot of trout in the foot-long range, and surprisingly high numbers of fish that are two feet nose to tail. A 24-inch trout will push five pounds. Jeff says that many of the browns are 1½ pounds or better and that, “It’s not uncommon to get a triploid or big brown in the five-pound range.”
To me, five-pound trout are always uncommon, but tonight I’m willing.
The basic Hex pattern assortment, according to Mark Bachman at the Fly Fishing Shop in Welches, is dominated by light yellow colors for body, thread and abdomen.
These flies, Hexagenia limbata are the largest of all mayflies, and a mouthful of solid protein for trout. Nymphs
are 1-3/8 inches long and adults will stretch out to two inches. A Grand Slam entrée in a single bite.
That these giants hatch primarily in the dark is an adrenalin soaking bonus for fly fishers. We stand in boats, blind in the night, holding rod and drooping line, straining to see anything, listening for gulpers, poised like bats, imagining audio target lines lasering to horrible-crunching rises that sound like buckets of anchors dropped overboard, or more likely a monster trout sucking stars from the sky.
And when you hear it you cast blindly in that direction. Cast and wait and hope that in the invisibility your short leader didn’t tangle, the fly turned over and that the trout will take. And when that brown or rainbow sucks down a natural somewhere near where you think your fly floats your reflexes go off and you set the hook in air and curse. It takes discipline to wait for the tug, to wait for the line to slam tight, to wait for an honest hookup.
When the Merrill hex hatch is in full eruption, it’s almost always on a warm night in July or August with steady high barometer, Jeff tells me. On such nights the sounds of crashing trout carry like detonations in the night. “Wait until you feel the weight,” he warns me. “Patience. Don’t strike at the sound,” which is easy to say and almost impossible to accomplish.
“Sometimes the trout, especially the bigger trout, try to sink the fly before eating it,” he reasons, “they’ll hit it and drive it under then turn and gulp it. Never strike until you feel the weight pulling. Never.”
A trout is feeding, three evenly spaced splatters in a row. I throw where I think the fourth will be and grip the rod hard. When you throw a giant yellow mayfly into blackness you may be picking a fight with a 10-inch wannabe or a 5-pound Triploid. Never know. The cast is decent and the Cripple lands where I think the trout is headed. I pull out the slack, put the rod tip in the water and stop breathing. The next sound I hear is a trout slurping in the dark on the opposite side of the boat. Let it float, Jeff says, see if something else comes along. I exhale.
Night casting veterans at Merrill will bring leaders, shortened to five or six feet, 3X for stiffness to turn big flies, pre-tied with quick-change loops and knotted on patterns for quick replacements in the dark. Time counts when the Hex eruption is on, when tangles in the night are inevitable and fingers turn into thumbs. Quick change loops with pre-knotted flies are as necessary as night vision, headlamps and patient partners.
It is best, Jeff says, to bring a Hex fly box with rows of Nymphs on No. 4 TMC 200R hooks; Emergers (Cripples) on No. 8 TMCR 200; Duns (Paradrakes) on No. 8 TMC 100s; and Spinners on No. 8 TMC 100s.
Carry plenty of fly flotant and stock up on two-inch Cripples and Paradrakes—these are the quivering dry flies for night work, the oversized fodders that transform selective sippers into gluttonous gulpers. The Merrill Hex hatch begins in early July and runs well into August, lasting six to eight weeks. How far into August it continues depends on weather. To center the Hex hatch plan to be on the water the last week in July, first week in August and to fish from just before dark until you want to quit.
Jeff and I were off the water by 11 p.m. but it was a weak hatch that night and when the hatch is running strong the action can last until well into early morning.
When the giant mayflies of darkness are not hatching, Merrill remains a fine trout option with respectable insect life. It produces callibaetis hatches, chironomids, small dark caddis (longhorn and northerns), damsels, midges and occasionally great shoreline hatches of reddish flying ants. A well-packed Merrill Lake fly box should also hold imitations of water boatmen, beetles, leeches, crayfish and sculpins—and a few fry-imitating streamers for just in case work.
Jeff recommends that for blind prospecting, especially during non-Hex periods, that fly casters bring dry assortments of Trudes and Royal Wulff patterns in size 14-16, elk hair caddis, blue-winged olives, alder flies and damsels. He adds a row of wets that include Wooly Buggers, seal buggers, nymphs and leeches in olive, purple or black. A gold bead head seems to add a touch of irrestiblity to leeches and buggers crawling on bottom.
Patterned fishing positions at Merrill fall into two levels: dries on the surface and trolling or wind drifted wets near bottom, with little reason to fish in the mid-depths. The accepted Merrill Lake wet fly trolling/drifting technique is to use sinking lines, tips and weighted flies (no split shot allowed) that will have patterns hugging bottom in 10 to 20 feet of water. It’s good to get a jump on the night bite by scratching the bottom an hour or two before sunset. Position over 10 feet of water, cast a weighted nymph or favorite wet and let it settle to the bottom. Sporadically lift the fly up and let it settle back as the boat or line drifts.
Hexagenia nymphs develop and hatch from burrows on mud or silted bottoms 10 to 40 feet down and when the surface water is dead still and free of concentric rings the depths are where we search for pre-rise trout that are likely feeding on nymphs and pupa emergers. There are also leeches, sculpins and small minnows along the bottom.
Typically, the real Hex action begins about a half hour before sunset, when trout begin slurping scatterings of surface shaking cripples and emergers, harbingers of the main hatch to come.
The more influential that the Hex hatches become to the lake’s trout feeding schedule the more that bite schedule slides toward late afternoon and into evening when Hexes are most active. The late bite will continue even when there is no hex hatch, and when trout are feeding on other flies such as smaller callibaetis or blue wing olives, caddis, damsels or midges, according to my guide. Late afternoons and evenings are consistently most productive for all insect patterns during the July-August hex activity. The exception is when gusty winds pepper the surface with floating ants or other terristerials. Whenever that happens, regardless of the hour, it triggers spontaneous surface feeding, Jeff says.
Little weed growth is available in Merrill that would concentrate chironomids, mayfly and caddis opportunities, a condition blamed on the natural lake’s dramatic water level fluctuations. Merrill is formed behind a porous rock slide across the outlet.It fills in winter and leaks all summer. By mid-summer, Jeff says, the lake can be 20 feet shallower than it is in spring, a radical drop that exposes and dehydrates tentative water weed development, and eliminates permanent beds. It also, however, bares the best structure, rocks, reefs, logs, and stream channels.
Lacking weeds to target, Merrill fishers work the flats under 10 to 20 feet of water where nymphs emerge from bottom silt or cling, to willows or fall from overhanging bushes. The lack of food-rich, sheltering weed beds also has a dramatic effect on the hatchery trout, Jeff says.
As the water level drops, food sources dry up, hatches deplete and by fall the fat triploids of early summer shrink into big-headed torpedoes. Mostly, Jeff says, it’s the stocked triploids that lose weight when the easy pickings are gone. Merrill’s natural browns, ‘bows and cutts are more resourceful, he says, and will turn to terrestrials, leeches, minnows and sculpins and rarely morph into torpedoes.
But that downsizing takes place weeks after the Hex hatch, long after the last mega mayfly is gulped in the night and Jeff says, ‘there’s still some five-pound browns and big ‘bows in here to catch.”
A fuzzy splotch of white begins to glow behind the clouds, a weak moon in a clouded night sky.
Jeff changes flies in the soft glow of a low flashlight and munches a candy bar.
I cast into the dark, settle the fly, take out the slack and twitch it repeatedly. In the blindness of my imagination, in the dark the big yellow fly with the elk hair wing, grizzly dyed hackle and moose hair tail is riding high on the surface tension and quivering with life.
It is irrestible.
I wait for the 5-pound brown to gulp.
And I make myself promise to wait for the weight.
Merrill Lake NOTEBOOK:
When:
Late March-October.
Hexagenia hatch peaks July-August.
Where:
Southwest Washington, Cowlitz County, 23 miles east of Woodland and five miles north of Cougar off Hwy 503 on FS Rd. 81.
Headquarters:
Small DNR campground at the lake, RV sites and cabins in Cougar and along Hwy. 503. The DNR Merrill Lake campground has 11 primitive tent sites and RV slabs, and a gravel ramp with good slope and plenty of parking. Primitive boat camping on lake shore. A $10 state Discover Pass is required to use DNR facilities and may be purchased online (www.discoverpass.wa.gov) or at retail licensing agencies. It is available along with groceries, eats and drinks at the
Cougar Bar and Grill, 360-238-5252,
Cougar RV Park and Campground
(http://cougarrv.net) with cabins and tent sites,
360-238-5224;
Lone Fir Resort
360-238-5210;
Regulations:
Open year-round. Fly-fishing only, barbless hooks, no more than two to a line, no line-attached weights, knotless nets only, catch-and-release, no internal combustion engines.
Appropriate Gear:
Small boat, canoe, float tube or pontoon. Oars and electric motors are allowed. Four, five or six weight rods, floating, full-sink, and intermediate lines. 3X tippets for night fishing, 7X tippets for daylight, flies with single barbless hooks.
Useful Fly Patterns:
Hexagenia (dun) paradrake, emerger (cripple), sizes 8-12; Hexagenia nymph size 4; Trudes and Royal Wulff sizes 12-16; marabou leeches, weighted, olive, purple and black; seal bugger, Woolly Bugger and Woolly Worm, weighted. black and olive size 8-10; Muddler, Adams and other callibaetis imitators; BWO and blue Damsel flies; snow (white and tan midges) flies; flying ants in black and red, dark caddis and alder fly.
Necessary accessories:
Dry fly floatant, leader sink, headlamp or night-vision red flashlight for late Hex hatch, pre-tied leaders with quick change loops and tied flies; knotless landing net, needle nose release pliers or forceps, polarized sunglasses, hat, layered clothing that will take you from warm afternoons to chilly mountain nights, electric trolling motor, anchor, mosquito repellent, eagle repellent.
Licenses:
Nonresident:
1-day $17.82; 2-days $24.36; 3-days $30.91; Annual $50.
Resident: 1-day $10.18; 2-day $13.46; 3-day $16.73;
Annual $24.
Washington Discover Pass, Daily $10;
Annual $30.
Fly Shops & Guides:
Jeff Traver,
Stonefly Guide Service, Castle Rock, WA,
www.stoneflyguideservice.com;
Email: [email protected];
360-431-2183;
Anglers Fly Shop, Woodland,
www.anglersworkshop.com,
360-225-6359;
Greased Line Fly Shoppe, Vancouver,
www.greasedline.com,
360-573-9383.
Maps/Information:
Washington Atlas & Gazetteer by DeLorme Mappping;
Gifford-Pinchot NF map;
Washington Lake Maps and Fishing Guide,
Amato Books, www.amatobooks.com;
