Lakes Dorena Reservoir Fishing Reports

[Troutski]

I made it out to the Dorena Reservoir at sunrise, first in the water and last out, one other boat on the lake he was bass fishing near the string of islands following the channel, no one else would put up with the nasty ramp and rain. The water temp. was 44/45 degrees, most of the lake was off color a bit, tried trolling, tossing lures and bobber fishing with a worm.

Nothing would bring the fatties out of there hiding places, tried to locate the Crappie nothing doing, must be still a bit early. By the end of the day I was working on a skunk and just the idea of posting on that forum turned my stomach.....so.........I anchored up on the main channel and tossed out some sherbet power bait......finely a Trout, not bad a 14 incher even a non-clipped one.

The rain started around noonish and had cloud cover all day, should have been a great catchen day - but alas no skunk. Made my day, wasn't at home doing honey does and got home in time for a nap..... Early spring fishing is tough, as the days get longer and the water warms up the fish will begin the feeding frenzy. Until then I will continue to spend my time practicing my skills. Here are a few photo's of the day.

Chuck

 

[Throbbit _Shane]

Fished with my friend and forum member TTFishon on halloween at the Dorena Reservoir, the water is drawn down right but the boat ramp is still very accessible. Especially for us since we were in pontoons, but the lake this day also had two other boats on the water. We were getting pretty consistent bites with spoons and my first fish was actually a hard fighting cuttie. I have the two rod endorsement so along with a spoon I ran a plug. I ran a hot shot for awhile with no takes so I put on a small crawfish color rapala and trolled that around. I thought about changing that plug out on more then a couple occasions, mostly because it wasn't a floating plug and I wasn't sure how far it was diving. I kept with and finally got hit, and when it did I thought my rod was snagged then I seen the fish come up and jump a time or two. Me and Ted both seen it was a good one then, and I had him come over to me and net it since I didn't bring one. And luckily I did because right after it hit the net the plug came right out. It was a real nice 16" hold over.

After that we found the the channel and tried to go up in it, turned out most of it had no depth to it so we left. On the way out my rod got buried and I caught another nice hold over on a spoon 17" and fat with a tiny hook jaw. After that we kept on getting the average pellet heads on spoons. I wound up breaking off a trout on the mini crawdad rapala, I also wound up catching a nice 13" stocker on the frog pattern hot shot, then not long after broke it off on a fish too. Was another fun day of fishing with TTFishon.

Tight Lines!

 

[radiationalley]

Hi everybody! I've been a lurker for some weeks now, and I finally decided I would post. First, I want to thank everybody on this site for their contributions; a special thank you to Troutski and Troutdude, I've been reading through your posts and been trying to learn as much as possible. My wife and I recently purchased our first boat, and we're really starting to enjoy this new world. Anyways, thanks everybody! I hope to see a bunch of you on the water!

Fishing Report:
Dorena Lake
5-24-2014
Time fished: 2:00 P.M. - Sunset
Water Temperature: ≈70°
Weather: Generally overcast, windy.
Personal note: I felt rather gassy.

We trolled two lines most of the day. We ran gold, silver, yellow, and orange. Gold spoons (1/3oz. and a little smaller little cleo and Thomas Buoyant) was mildly productive while a silver trout colored Rapala (about index finger long) was really hitting them nicely. We lost very few fish. Among the fish we caught (about 12), 10 were trout, 1 smallmouth bass, and 1 baby yellow perch (very surprising, I didn't know they were in this lake).

I have noticed that the trout in this lake are almost always thick, meaty, feisty, and angry. They didn't nibble, and they take lures with a ton of passion. We were unfortunately hooking way too many in gills and whatnot. We always catch and release, but sometimes fish just want to be dinner. And good mercury-tainted dinner they made.

Well met, friends!

Edit: I don't know why, but the wife is upside down, however, I believe that does not diminish her hotness in any way.

 

[tljack]

Fished Dorena Reservoir Friday and Saturday. Limited in a very short time. Fish finder shows fish everywhere. They are planters, 12" average, but boy do they put on a show and are really scrappy! Everyone of them jumped multiple times. :thumb:

The water temperature was average of 67 degrees. I was trolling small flasher followed by wedding ring with a worm. Several guys were using about 1 oz. of weight attached to the flasher rudder. My rig was un-weighted and I was running it between 40 and 50 feet behind the boat.

Originally I was trolling My Honda 8 hp. kicker at an idle, about 1.13 MPH. I kicked the throttle up to about 1.7 MPH and got much better hook up.

Friday afternoon it got windy and choppy but the fish were biting. Saturday is was clam. Very few boats on the lake but all catching fish. There was also a bass tournament happing.

Both days were sunny however Saturday it started out very overcast.

I was fishing with two poles and several times had 2 fish on at once. In other words, I had a blast!!

 

[4labs]

Took the old Grady out for a test run . Started at Cottage Grove Res but the ramp had some debris at the dock and decided to head to Dorena since it was the next closest and the wife convinced me to at least give it a try.
Launched to a empty ramp and only 2 trailers in the lot.
Ran the boat for awhile at all speeds and every thing seem fine.
Dropped 2 lines out 120ft with plugs and had the first one on in 5min.
Ended up with 8 from 18" to13". Had 1 double on and released 7 smaller ones. Hits were every 10min or less. At least 30 or more take downs
A great time but left the labs at home, not use to that but the Grady makes it nearly imposable to let them out on the shore.
Water was 59 degrees and vis about 3ft. Little floating debris.

 

[4labs]

Made another trip to Dorena to run the Grady.
Fishing was good trolled plugs with 2 limits , released 10 or more and lost that many.
Ramp is usable but a challenge for a large glass boat.
Nothing over 14" but firm orange meat and good fighters.
Water 64 an 6ft vis.

 

[NKlamerus]

Report for Dorena Reservoir because we were skunked at cottage Grove. I definitely like Dorena more, better structure, dirtier water, less traffic, and caught some fish. Only caught one smallie and 2 Largemouths in about 5 hours but it was also a good test run of a buddy's boat. The biggest Largemouth was 2lbs 9oz, both came out of tall grass on a Zoom Lizard, weighted. Unfortunately, I never clicked the screen and the fish photos didn't focus.

 

[fromthelogo]

Focused or not, those are nice fish. Thanks for the report.

 

[portlandrain]

I was at cottage Grove last week and managed to catch a few spots but it was a tough lake! It took four hours to get the first bite. I also prefer Dorena, it's a gorgeous lake

 

[NKlamerus]

Forgot the weather pics of course

 

[jamisonace]

Every spring I take a boat load of kids to Dorena and smack the crap out of really nice trout up to 18". There are much bigger fish in there but they are deeper and I don't target them. Not sure I've ever left without a limit for each kid. I have some great memories on that lake.

 

[NKlamerus]

On the water about 11 today on the "Crappie Crappie"

Fished the north end and battled the wind down the east side until about 4pm

Nice bass, 4lbs 4oz on a beaver style punching bait

Lost another in the weeds at the side of the boat, unfortunately decent size, about 2lbs or so

I don't know what kind of weeds they are, they look like underwater bamboo then split into "Y"s at the surface, with smaller lavender style pink flowers/blooms, stem is green/red

Caught a bunch of tiny smallmouth on my go-to trout worm, as well as some small perch

 

[fromthelogo]

Thanks for the report.

 

[portlandrain]

It looks like some of the decent fish stay up shallow there in summer, that's good to know. Do you know the water temp?