Lakes Henry Hagg Lake Fishing Reports

[bass]

I think the bass at Hagg are in their summer pattern (whatever that is). I had high hopes for the day since there was good cloud cover all day. I agree about barometric pressure affecting lake fish quite a bit and river fish hardly at all. I am so used to fishing for river fish that I don't even check anymore. I just looked and the pressure looked pretty steady, a tiny bit low but nothing that should have put the bite off (I think).

The patterns I used are ones that I used in the summers on the East coast. I can't figure out why bass would not be feeding in weeds and especially along the deep edge. That is such a classic summer pattern.

One thing that may have factored in a little is that I believe there is a ton of bluegill fry in the lake right now. I found some in the bottom of the kayak when I got home (3/4" long at most). I guess one of the bass puked them up. All day long on my FF I saw little speckles from about 5' down to about 10 or 12' in a lot of the lake. At the time I thought it was algae or something but perhaps it is all bluegill fry.

 

[Aervax]

Having fished with you I expect much of this will be rehashing things you already know and do, but I am covering more bases than probably needed in hope of sharing ideas new to some of the forum members who are just getting into lake bass. My experience with July bass on lakes other than Haag is that multiple feeding patterns emerge and make it seem like there isn't a pattern at all. Their primary food sources are peaking in availability by midsummer. Bass don't have to work very hard to fill up on panfish or their fry. Shiners and dace or other minnows have reproduced and are everywhere, and same goes for crawdads. I think when summer bass are hungry they go on an aggressive binge and fill up easily and quickly. That's why the bite turns on and off so suddenly. My take is that they are eating opportunisticaly all the time, but if they aren't really hungry they just sit back on their favorite structure and wait for a suicide meal to present itself to their open jaws. That means our lures have to be right on top of whatever structure they are focused on to get bit. And after the spawn they have spread out to favored structures within the lake. Some are still shallow in weed beds binging on blue gill and crawdads. Some are suspended off points waiting for balls of bait to swim past. Others are now hunkered down in brush piles inhaling anything that dares to enter. Then there are deepwater stumps and boulders to probe and so on. I think being at the right place at the right time is half the battle with bass this time of year. You get that early bite going on in the morning, and the late bite just before dusk because it's easier pickings for them then; and maybe they are hungrier then, too. A falling barometer activates their food source and they can go on an unexpected binge. Wind can do the same by creating current and ambush spots around points and other structure as bait fish swim with the current. Sometimes downwind shorelines are good too as plankton and baitfish stack up where the wind is pushing all their good eats. It's a different set of cues and more of them to read, I guess, than river fishing where the main concern is how bass are relating to current and structure in a way that makes feeding as efficient as possible. On a lake pretty much anything we try will catch a few fish if we do it all day long, but those are caught sort of at random as our chosen lure happens upon the right place at the right time. Once the spawn is over and lake bass aren't biting out of sheer aggression or protection of their bed, start focusing just on the sweet spots of each structure you come across with a technique specific to that structure. A weed bed for example, run a spinner bait down any open lanes and along the deepwater edge. Throw a frog or popper into openings in the weeds. Follow that with a Senko in the sweetest best gaps. Put 10 minutes into it. If nothing happens move onto the next structure. Standing timber in 30 feet of water, Texas rig a worm or pitch jigs and get them to fall literally against the base. Bounce a couple times. Do the same on the other side of it. Move to the next stump and repeat. No bites in 15 minutes move to the next structure and technique. Start banging crankbaits or speedtraps off the the rocks on a submerged point where the wind is making a little current. Bang it into the structure, hesitate, rip it, hesitate, bang it it off the bottom and hesitate again. If any one thing is working well, then start focusing on that type of structure and technique throughout the lake. Summer lake fishing is a weird combination of hyper-focus on specific structure and technique combined with flexibility to keep changing it up in a non-random very focused way. You catch a few bass here and there, then hit a hit streak for twenty minutes, then have to start over again with working it out on the next structure you come to. That is how I have had my best summer bass days. It sounds predictable and easy, but it is anything but that. It really takes some practice time on a specific lake to figure out where the productive structure is and how to fish it. That's where the fun comes in when we get to spend lots of time on a specific lake learning secrets about it that no else had figured out, yet. River fishing can be easy in comparison. All of it is so much fun!

 

[bass]

Great reply @Aervax. I try to take a similar surgical approach to fishing.

Usually, I start shallow and slowly work deeper and deeper until I find fish. At each depth range I like to try a variety of lure types based on speed and depth (cover top to bottom with various speeds). I have been leaning on a jerkbait for covering near the surface, crankbaits for mid-depths to bottom with speed (a spinnerbait if I hang up the crank too much) and then soft plastic for a low and slow presentation. Usually, at some point you put together a pattern of a certain depth and speed being at least somewhat productive.

A challenge I always face that you address nicely is running and gunning versus being thorough. I started the day fishing more thoroughly than I usually fish because I know this one long weedbed always has fish on it. I probably spent too much time trying to will them to bite. Later in the day, I fished at my more usual and faster pace but neither approach really panned out.

The thing that confounds me about Hagg is that I know I have to be fishing over fish but I was not getting bit on any approach. Maybe they were stuffed with those tiny bluegill, maybe they are suspending out over open water hunting trout. The other factor is that the lake is starting to drop. Down 6' now and it usually drops about 30' by late fall.

I will need to make another trip to Hagg this summer. Next time I will make sure that we have a nice stable weather pattern so the fish should be acting "normal".

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. Everyone should read that very carefully!

 

[GungasUncle]

I think the unstable water conditions lead to this issue in Hagg specifically. For me the best bass fishing comes early and late in the year out there - when water levels are pretty stable. I love spring Hagg, when the water is up at full pool, and there's lots of flooded grass and wood. Once the lake starts dropping, the fish get put off and it becomes a hunting game - I've had my best success following shelves and fishing points, along with any submerged wood I can find when the water drops. Tanner creek on the north end can still be good. Deep water by the dam can also be good for both large and smallmouth. Lipless cranks, deep running cranks, and soft plastics are my go to baits at that point.

In the fall, once irrigation has ended and the levels normalize, the fish will move shallow again. I've had great days in September and October throwing top water almost all day long. Zara Spook Jr becomes a favorite bait at that point.

When the surface temps climb toward 80, I try to find springs and creek inlets as well - access to cooler fresher water seems to draw both the trout and the smaller fish bass feed on.

Good luck dude, Hagg bass are finicky at best on a good day out there due to the pressure - if you get them in an eating mood it gets pretty glorious, but it seems rare!

 

[Aervax]

@GungasUncle you sound like the guy to know when it comes to fishing Haag. Awesome insights for us newbies to the lake.

 

[portlandrain]

I have a lot of trouble at hagg in summer too. A lot of people talk about the summer pattern for large mouth in general being either shallow cover or deep. Hagg is plenty deep, easily 100 feet at the damn end, but once the water starts to fall there is next to 0 shallow cover. Just muddy bottom for what seems like forever. I have a feeling you could find them suspended some place out in open water but that's tough in a kayak. You'd spend a lot of energy looking. I was there in September 2016 for the purpose of just mapping the bottom because the water was so low you could see everything at the upper end, and found it quite uninteresting. The creek channel of scoggins Creek may be a good place to try if there is still water in the flooded grass back that way, and the channel has a sheer wall that they may be able to ambush against. But I've not tried that this late into the year. Once I discovered the smallie bite on the Willamette in summer, I haven't been to hagg much after spring!

 

[bass]

I think the unstable water conditions lead to this issue in Hagg specifically. For me the best bass fishing comes early and late in the year out there - when water levels are pretty stable. I love spring Hagg, when the water is up at full pool, and there's lots of flooded grass and wood. Once the lake starts dropping, the fish get put off and it becomes a hunting game - I've had my best success following shelves and fishing points, along with any submerged wood I can find when the water drops. Tanner creek on the north end can still be good. Deep water by the dam can also be good for both large and smallmouth. Lipless cranks, deep running cranks, and soft plastics are my go to baits at that point.

In the fall, once irrigation has ended and the levels normalize, the fish will move shallow again. I've had great days in September and October throwing top water almost all day long. Zara Spook Jr becomes a favorite bait at that point.

When the surface temps climb toward 80, I try to find springs and creek inlets as well - access to cooler fresher water seems to draw both the trout and the smaller fish bass feed on.

Good luck dude, Hagg bass are finicky at best on a good day out there due to the pressure - if you get them in an eating mood it gets pretty glorious, but it seems rare!

Thanks for your input. I think my experience matches yours in the spring, but I usually troll for trout in the fall. I figured as the water dropped that the points with grass would be an absolute magnet for a while, but that did not seem to be the case last time I went. Maybe when it drops a little more that will happen. I have to believe as the shoreline cover dries up they have to go on the grassy points for a while. Of course eventually even that dries up. Then I have no idea what they do.

 

[bass]

I have a lot of trouble at hagg in summer too. A lot of people talk about the summer pattern for large mouth in general being either shallow cover or deep. Hagg is plenty deep, easily 100 feet at the damn end, but once the water starts to fall there is next to 0 shallow cover. Just muddy bottom for what seems like forever. I have a feeling you could find them suspended some place out in open water but that's tough in a kayak. You'd spend a lot of energy looking. I was there in September 2016 for the purpose of just mapping the bottom because the water was so low you could see everything at the upper end, and found it quite uninteresting. The creek channel of scoggins Creek may be a good place to try if there is still water in the flooded grass back that way, and the channel has a sheer wall that they may be able to ambush against. But I've not tried that this late into the year. Once I discovered the smallie bite on the Willamette in summer, I haven't been to hagg much after spring!

I agree with your assessment. When Hagg is full it seems like a rice fishery but as it drops it seems pretty sterile. I think if I could find the stumps and stuff at the right depth once it really drops would be the thing. It makes sense that must congregate at places like that ( as @GungasUncle seemed to indicate that).

 

[Pole Bendahz]

From May to July I like to fish shallow. Weightless Texas-rigged trick worms work well for me shallow and drop shots if you're fishing 5+ ft deep. I don't think many o the fish hang deep unless the air temps getting into the high 90s, the lake water tends to run cool enough for the bass to stay shallow throughout the summer.

 

[bass]

Thanks for that info @Pole Bendahz . That is different from what I would have guessed. I love learning new things. I bet I have spent time fishing too deep in the summer. Do you target the mud lines near shore?

 

[tbrinks]

Before my Sunday trip I went ahead and spent $15 for a one year subscription to the Navionics app for my phone so that I could use it while fishing. I know I could use the web page but the app is nicer and seems a lot faster. That worked great and I highly recommend it if you don't have great maps already.

+1 on this. I've been using the depth shading on my app a bunch lately. Really helps to find areas.

 

[bass]

+1 on this. I've been using the depth shading on my app a bunch lately. Really helps to find areas.

That is cool, I did not know you could do this in the app. I do this on my Garmin Quickdraw contours and really like it there. Thanks for the tip!

 

[tbrinks]

That is cool, I did not know you could do this in the app. I do this on my Garmin Quickdraw contours and really like it there. Thanks for the tip!

Yeah, it's been awesome. Also been using the water level offset as many of the lakes I fish are a little low right now.

 

[bass]

I had a fun and interesting day at Hagg Lake this past Sunday. It was a mixed day of fog, mist, drizzle, shivering but ultimately going home with a smile on my face.

I got to the lake pretty early and launched at boat ramp C. My plan was to spend most of the day trolling but to save a little time at the end for bass fishing.

I started trolling towards Sain Creek and in short order, after a couple of lost fish, landed my first of the day, a nice chunky rainbow that fought like a demon possessed. The trout were like maniacs all day in the 60+ degree water.



I caught that fish, and most of the 33 other trout, on my favorite Hagg setup. A 50' setback, a 1/8oz dropper, a 1/24oz green roostertail with a trailer hook with 1/2 a nightcrawler threaded on. I also caught trout on a pink roostertail and a Strike King Bitsy Minnow in Sexy Shad.



The Bitsy Minnow is the lure in the photo. The day was a little different than what I consider normal. It was a continuous, steady stream of fish. I think I only had one or two doubles on and none landed. Normally at Hagg the trout are more bunched with longer lulls followed by torrid action. This was a classic example of "slow and steady wins the race".

Now 33 trout, with many good-sized ones, is always a great day of fishing, but it was the bonus fish that really made the day. Late in the morning I was trolling when I had a good hit on the Bitsy Minnow. The fish put a nice bend in my rod by was relatively sedate compared to the crazed, often airborne, rainbows I had been catching. I was pretty excited to see the mystery fish.



I was pretty blown away to catch a nice-sized crappie out over open water. The day got better and more exciting and interesting with each crappie I caught a crappie. Some on the Bitsy Minnow and some on the roostertails.





After the last fish, my camera said it was full. That is weird I thought. I figured my SD card was loose. Turns out I was right. It was really loose, like back home on my desk loose. Cue up a Home Simpson "Doh".

The camera has internal memory for 5 pictures so I put it away and kept on fishing. As the day wore I on my desire to fish for bass grew and grew until I could not stand it any longer. I racked the trout rods and picked up my bass gear.

The action was not red-hot but I managed to land a 2lb 6oz, 2lb 2oz smallmouth and a 1lb 9oz largemouth in about an hour and half. The wind was a little challenging for kayak control but it was a lot of fun. All the fish came on a drop shot from about 25-30' of water.

That pretty much raps up my day. I did not take pictures of the bass, but I did have my video camera with me. It died after the 2lb 6oz bass (my first bass). This is the least terrible of the footage from the day. It is pretty crappy but feel free to enjoy - or don't - no pressure Thanks for reading along!

 

[4labs]

Wow
Now that's a report plus great pic.
Never tried a roster tail but have a bunch of them.
If they hit the bitsy minnow try a Berkley rainbow flicker shad in 3inch. Put a little Pro Cure trophy trout on the bill.
Really hard to find. Sometimes Sportsmans Warehouse has it and Coastal. It out fishes every lure I have.

 

[troutdude]

Wow! What an epic day @bass! You must've hit it right when the "fall turnover" occurred!

 

[bass]

Thanks @4labs ! I don't think the exact lure matters all that much but I do believe things like size matter. The water is quite clear right now so I like to fish really tiny stuff. The 1/24oz roostertail is just a convenient way to get there. I have thought about just trolling a plain worm without any spinner at all just to see if the spinner is really needed or not. I know a lot of people troll a bare worm behind a flasher and catch fish.

I looked up the flicker shad and it looks like a rapala shad rap. I believe the fish are feeding on bluegill fry which are only about 1" long. The bitsy minnow is 1.25" and I think it is a little big. A 3" lure is relatively large in comparison. I do throw on a bigger plug occasionally but usually I catch about the same size fish at a slower rate.

Your idea of adding scent to a plug is a good one. I used to do that a lot in bass fishing but slowly stopped since it did not seem to affect the catch rate. Trout, though, might be a different idea. I assume adding the 1/2 nightcrawler helps because of the scent. Makes a ton of sense that for a plug it might be even more important. If I get back out to Hagg this year I will run a little experiment.

@troutdude the lake is not even close to turning over. The surface temp is still in the low- to mid-60s. I believe the deep water may still be in the upper 40s. Likely won't turnover until much later (if ever). Not sure if Hagg turns over or not. Also, my experience is that turnover is the worst time to fish. The lake becomes roiled as the water mixes and lots of dead scum floats to the surface. That is how lakes turned over on the East coast but perhaps those conditions were due in part to how fast the water temp dropped and how hard the lake turned over. A gradual turnover is likely not disruptive the way East Coast turnovers were.

 

[troutdude]

@bass thank you. I'd not thought of turnover in that way before. What you've shared does make sense. But I sure have seen a lot of hype, in the past, about it being the "very best" time to fish (during the turnover). Maybe it's true for some lakes/regions; and not for others?

 

[bass]

I decided to hit Hagg this past Saturday for two reasons. My shoulder (torn labrum) was still sore from sturgeon fishing the weekend before and I had told @pinstriper that the fishing should still be good at Hagg.

What kind of fisherman would I be not to make sure I was not full of hot air. I got to the Lakestop store around 6:45 and picked up a new annual pass and a couple of doughnuts - just the essentials.

I headed over to boat ramp C, got ready and launched. First thing on the agenda was to calibrate the heading sensor I added during the week. I got a heading sensor mostly for deep water bass fishing. It is nice to know the direction the boat is facing as you are drifting in current or being pushed by the wind. That took a few minutes to work out, but once it was calibrated it was really nice (comes in useful later in the story).

I started trolling where I had done well last time out (about a month ago). I trolled parallel to the boat ramp C side between Sain adn Scoggins. That turned out to be a bust for me. I was a little surprised that I did not get a single hit on two passes.

I thought perhaps the fishing are moving out over deeper water so I decided to troll along the no-wake buoys. That was definitely better than catching nothing and it did not take long to catch my first fish.

I trolled back and forth 3 or 4 times. I got a bite or two each time, and they were all nice fish (12-14") but the bite was way slower than earlier. After 3 and 1/2 hours of fishing I only had 6 trout. If they had not been nice sized I would have left more quickly but each time just about when I was ready to move I would get a bite. All the fish came on my favorite 1/24oz roostertail with 1/2 nightcrawler, 1/8oz on the dropper and 50' back. I kept one rod fishing like that all day.

I experimented quite a bit with the other rod. Trying different lures, different dropper weights and different set backs. I got one bite fishing a roostertail deep (that I missed) and I caught a few perch pulling a Bitsy Minnow in Sexy Shad. Overall, that experimental rod was a bust.

Eventually, I said to myself, "Enough of this" and I finally decided to head up towards the dam.

One of my favorite trolling lanes is to go back and forth along the ramp A side between the ramp and the dam. There is a lot of deep water close to shore there and that area seems to always hold trout. Saturday was no different. As soon as I got to where the deep water swings into shore I started getting bit on a regular basis. For a while I ran both rods with a roostertail 50' back and I was catching fish on both rods, but I did not hook a double all day long.

The interesting thing is that there were some small fish mixed in with the decent fish along that side. It was interesting because the previous trip I caught all nice-sized fish by ramp C and the fish near the no-wake buoys were al good-sized. The fish along the ramp A side were a mixed bag. I caught some small ones (~10") but also my best fish of the day (a really fat 16").

Once I understood where the fish were stacked up I did experiment again. I put the Bitsy Minnow back on and caught a few fish on it but nothing I did could match that 1/24oz roostertail (green with gold blade) with 1/2 nightcrawler. I am not sure why they like that one so much at Hagg but it is just always a killer.

The fishing stayed good for the few hours I was there. It was fun trolling along, catching fish and seeing folks along the shoreline catch them as well.

As it got later in the afternoon I eventually decided it was time to stop the trolling and do some bass fishing. I really wanted to see how helpful the heading sensor was with respect to me holding where I wanted to and making casts in the right direction.

I fished for bass for about 1.5 hours and only caught two smallmouth (both about 1.5lbs) but that was still a lot of fun. I let the light breeze push me along the creek channel and used the heading sensor and my paddle to keep me facing the brushpiles as I drifted along. I can't wait to try that out next summer on the Willamette!

Overall it was a pretty decent day. Not as good as a month earlier but a good bite for November. Water temp was 52.5 degrees which seems really warm for November. I am now thinking perhaps I need to try to catch a bass each month of the year. I am not totally against global warming

Between having my camera tucked inside my rain jacket while it sprinkled (for a good bit of the day) and changing some settings on my action cam which screwed up most of the footage I did get there was not much footage I could salvage. One good change I made was to make the angle bigger. I don't feel like I am looking through a crack with these settings.

Please let me know if you think these settings are better (if you watched footage from the previous sturgeon trip).

Thanks for reading!

 

[C_Run]

Nice report. I think I have parked my kayak for the year now but maybe I'll make it to Hagg next year.