Hunting Washington Forum

Other Activities => Fishing => Topic started by: PolarBear on May 06, 2009, 06:56:33 PM

Title: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: PolarBear on May 06, 2009, 06:56:33 PM: Howdy
At the end of this month we are going camping at Ike Kinswa park on Mayfield Lake with my Sister and Bro in-law. I have never fished it but always wanted to. I would like to go for tiger muskies but i won't be able to bring my bass boat, only my 10' Livingston. Can anyone give me some tips or advise on how to fish it for mainly trout and bass from the bank and a little boat?
Thanks!
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: rasbo on May 06, 2009, 07:05:10 PM: never fished it,let me know how ya do..I'm thinking just the basic trout fishing methods will do it.A friend of mine on lake tapps gets those muskies with a 10 foot livingston trolling points with big spinner's :dunno:
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Little John on May 06, 2009, 07:05:53 PM: Slow troll a 2-blade Hildibrant with a 14" leader and a worm topped with a green Jenson egg.
The Tilten arm and the Cowlitz arm are both good. I prefer the Cowlitz arm, should be a 1 hour limit or less,
pm me for more info.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: BLKBEARKLR on May 06, 2009, 07:32:19 PM: Love the tigers at Mayfield
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: rasbo on May 06, 2009, 07:39:01 PM: man thats cool.my dad told me about catching them as a kid in wisconsin,they made lures out of broom handles,says they looked like a zara spook
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: coonhound on May 06, 2009, 08:51:05 PM: I was out there chasing the Tigers a couple years ago, I saw a huge fish cruising the shoreline, I just assumed it was a Tiger. I chucked a huge spinner bait a few feet in front of it and it nailed it. To my surprise it was a 15lb steelhead the game department had dumped, I would have never thought a steelhead would've hit a 1/2 oz spinner bait. :dunno:

As far as the trout, I would troll up the Tilton finger on the SW side of the park, it can produce some nice trout. The bass fishing is just OK, but you'll find them in all the typical cover you'd find them in in other lakes. The Squaw fish can be a real nuisance at times, that's why they put the Tigers in.

Coon
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: PolarBear on May 07, 2009, 06:32:49 PM: Thanks folks! It looks like the kids and I will be bank maggots for the weekend, no trolling. We are probably going to leave the boat at home. I will definitely get up there this August for some tiger muskies!
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Alchase on May 11, 2009, 07:54:33 AM: Polarbear, if you are fishing from shore go to the mouth of the Cowlitz arm. There is a ton of beach fishing there and all the trout from the pens come right through there. Anywhere between the Bridge by the state park and the cowlitz mouth has good bank fishing. Closer to the bridge is around 85 feet deep. As you get towards the mouth where the cowlitz comes in it shallows up a bit. You can see it here in the link (shaded green area pointing to the south)
http://www.washingtonlakes.com/LakeInfo.aspx?id=141&t=1

I was there two weekends ago and the lake still had a lot of color, so you would probably do better from shore for trout.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: PolarBear on May 11, 2009, 07:11:52 PM: Thanks for the info! I'll give er' a try.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: ppodpearson on May 12, 2009, 06:47:49 AM: Ran out last Saturday morning (about 8:30) to try a new electric trolling motor and catch a limit of trout for dinner. Took about 3 hours. Only a few boats on the lake until close to noon, then toys started coming out. Didn't try for tigers but bet it would be fun to play with one.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: bennybooboo on May 19, 2009, 10:43:44 AM: How does a fella pull out at tiger? I live in Puyallup and have caught bass, trout, and whatnot in local lakes and rivers; but now I think I wanna get a muskie.

Having never fished for them specifically, how do you catch them? What rod, reel, line, leader combo should get things done? Where should I look/fish for them in the lakes (what cover do they like)? How about baits and lures?

Thanks, guys for all the help in advance. If I pull one out there will definitely be plenty of pics.

Eben
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on May 19, 2009, 11:22:02 AM: Wire leader with a large 8" Rapala will work, run 25# mono at a minimum. They call these the fish of 15,000 cast's, don't expect to catch more than 1-2 of them a season, even if you go out two dozen times.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: BLKBEARKLR on May 19, 2009, 11:43:24 AM: most of the time when you go out you will have some good follow ups. These are a lot different than a trus muskellenge. They are called the fish of a 1000 cast because in the spring time when they spawn they get soft jaw and you cannot get them to go after anything. The tigers are a lot easier since they are a crossbred they never spawn.

Like said 25 pound mono. A good 8 inch leader, and then just some big old baits, lots of big spinners, rapalas, zara spooks, I have a lot of large plastic's also that work great...
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Alchase on May 19, 2009, 12:44:53 PM: Or you can just troll a double whammy with a nitecrawler chaser for trout, and hook the Muskies on "accident". This has happened to me three times at Mayfield, scares the crap out of you everytime, lol.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on May 19, 2009, 12:48:05 PM: Quote from: BLKBEARKLR on May 19, 2009, 11:43:24 AM
most of the time when you go out you will have some good follow ups. These are a lot different than a trus muskellenge. They are called the fish of a 1000 cast because in the spring time when they spawn they get soft jaw and you cannot get them to go after anything. The tigers are a lot easier since they are a crossbred they never spawn.

Like said 25 pound mono. A good 8 inch leader, and then just some big old baits, lots of big spinners, rapalas, zara spooks, I have a lot of large plastic's also that work great...

Must be a little different here, when I lived back east they called them fish of 15k cast's, but those were as you said, true Muskie's.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Houndhunter on May 19, 2009, 01:07:56 PM: i fished a few times from a boat, i trolled plain old worms and sometimes i'd through a weding ring or corkie on it .also id troll a wolly bugger, havnt found the killer pattern they liked, they liked diff ones each trip :dunno:. but we kept it pretty simple and caught some nice trout
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: BLKBEARKLR on May 19, 2009, 01:08:02 PM: Dman, I hear you on the 15000 casts. I have spent plenty of time when I was growing up in New York fishing for the big guys, nothing would piss you off more seeing a 40+ incher sunning itself, would cast and cast to it and all it would do is watch the bait go on bye.

I have fished Mayfield quite a bit and have had real good success out there, I get quite a few follow ups and usually hook into a couple while out there. The one that that I have in the picture was a 44 incher. I got it to mount in school. As I was coming up to the dock this lady was down there with her 1yr old and sprayed a whole bunch of sunscreen on the lil guy and it had silver flakes in it. I then see her walking down to the lake like they were going to go swimming. I went and introduced myself to her and then introduced the tiger to her and told her it was probably not a good idea to have a lil silver shiny dude swimming in the water.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on May 19, 2009, 01:12:17 PM: Do you catch many of the pikeminnows in there any more? That was the primary reason they started stocking Mayfield with Tiger's, we used to catch piker's in there to over 5lbs, some nice trout and bass too. Cutt's over 20" and smallmouth over 3lbs. I tend to fish Riffe more these days.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: BLKBEARKLR on May 19, 2009, 01:24:02 PM: Nope have not caught any pikeminnows in there I have only caught one bass in that lake so far and I have no idea what the heck he was even thinking that day it was about a 2 pound smallie that ate a 5 oz rattle trap.

I used to fish Riffe a lot for smallies, there are some nice fish in Riffe
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on May 19, 2009, 01:28:39 PM: Sure is. Nice cutties in there too, we had what was to this day, the biggest cutt I've seen follow a spinnerbait to the boat there, had to be near 2' long. Also caught more silvers than I can count to 20", good eating, feeding on that freshwater shrimp.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: BLKBEARKLR on May 19, 2009, 02:31:04 PM: I did not throw a lot of spinners there, I used mostly plastics, and rattle traps. All one color
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Alchase on May 21, 2009, 10:39:14 AM: Quote from: Dmanmastertracker on May 19, 2009, 01:12:17 PM
Do you catch many of the pikeminnows in there any more?

Last year we caught quite a few pikeminnows. At the point by the boat launch it gets real deep. The pikeminnows school up there. They seem to be very territorial in Mayfield. I have never noticed that at other lakes.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Dmanmastertracker on May 21, 2009, 10:40:42 AM: That's where we used to catch them a lot as well.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: wapiti hunter2 on June 21, 2017, 07:26:24 PM: Going on Friday.

Any reports or tips? Targeting Tigers and trout. We'll fish from about 3 till dark.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: PolarBear on June 21, 2017, 11:43:52 PM: Wow! This is an old thread. :chuckle: I wound up finding muskies all over by the swimming area by Ike Kinswa, the mouth of the Cowlitz arm and the big weed bed across from Ike Kinswa. Better bring your patience hat because if you are lucky you might get a couple of strikes or followers all day. I caught them on big bucktails and hard swimbaits.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: wapiti hunter2 on June 22, 2017, 08:56:57 AM: Quote from: PolarBear on June 21, 2017, 11:43:52 PM
Wow! This is an old thread. :chuckle: I wound up finding muskies all over by the swimming area by Ike Kinswa, the mouth of the Cowlitz arm and the big weed bed across from Ike Kinswa. Better bring your patience hat because if you are lucky you might get a couple of strikes or followers all day. I caught them on big bucktails and hard swimbaits.

To tell the truth, I would be happy just seeing a few of the tigers. I've heard that they are amazing. Catching is always a bonus. We have the gear but this is more of a scouting/get our feet wet in Mayfield sort of trip.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: PolarBear on June 22, 2017, 09:02:50 AM: If you have a kayak or such, the swimming cove is loaded with them and they love to sun themselves. It's pretty cool to see those big ol gators hanging out just under the surface.
Title: Re: Fishing Mayfield Lake?
Post by: Alchase on June 22, 2017, 05:54:30 PM: If you can make it to Curlew, it is full of Tigers cruising the shallows. We use to watch them stalk the bass.