Wallowa Lake General Information:

If you find a more stunningly beautiful and serene glacial moraine lake, let us know.  Wallowa Lake is a truly sacred local place.  The lake is deep, cold, and impossibly clear. That means that it doesn't harbor the plant and insect life to be a true blue ribbon trout lake, but you could do worse then spending an even at the river in-let on the south end fo the lake swinging nymphs and fishing with Bald Eagles and Osprey.  And, if warm enough for a swim, well, there isn't a better place on earth.

Fly-fish for stocked trout at the south end where the river comes in.  Cast into the stream current, throw a few mends, then strip line off your reel and let the current carry it out, then strip it in.  Try a green woolly bugger or damsel fly with a small orange soft hackle trailer.  Or simply dead drift a prince nymph in the current.

2026 was a good year for big kokanee (as evidenced by daily Facebook postings by the two local guide companies). However, the Kokanee are now spawning (as of mid August) and guiding has halted.

FYI, WALLOWA LAKE DAM REHABILITATION HAS BEGUN. This project is being done as a precautionary measure, but the farmer's irrigation company also intend to increase the height of the dam - allowing them to store additional water (for which the "ditch company" has additional water rights) This additional water storage could help buffer drought years. And, under an agreement with the Irrigation Ditch Company additional water will be released into the Wallowa River - possibly in late summer when it will raise and cool the river! However, the higher water level will also affect the current lake shoreline

REESTABLISHING SOCKEYE RUNS. When there is construction on a dam where there was once an anadromous fish run, new fish passage must be provided for. This will take the form of a fish ladder around the dam. It will take several years for the Sockeye run to be established. The Sockeye and Kokanee will interbreed, with an unknown result on the traditional Wallowa Lake Kokanee fishery.

Some of our favorite Wallowa Lake Fly Patterns :

Dries:  Griffiths Gnat sz. 12 -18 , Parachute Adams sz. 12- 18 , Purple Haze sz 10 -16, Renegade sz. 12-16 , Turks Power Ant sz. 12 -16 

Nymphs:  Princes sz. 10 - 14, Rubber Leg Squirrel sz. 10 - 14, Copper John sz. 12 - 18 , Lightning Bug sz. 14 - 18,  Kaufman Stone Nymph sz. 6 -12, Green Damsel Nymph sz 10 - 14, Orange Soft Hackle sz. 14 - 20, Scud Patterns, Mysis Shrimp Patterns 

Streamers:  BH Olive or Black Rubber Legs Wooly Bugger sz. 8 - 12 , Matuka Spruce sz. 6 - 12 , Muddler Minnow , Leeches