Annual Spring Fishing Trip to Wickiup Reservoir and Twin Lakes Resort
Our annual trip to Wickiup has been happening for over 20+ years, with a few interruptions to Wallowa Lake during sparse years. Wickiup is a large reservoir on the east side of the Cascade Mountains in Central Oregon. Long known for it's tremendous Kokanee production, it is very popular the first few weeks of the season. Depending on yearly conditions fish often range up to 20+ inches in length. Sometimes limits are caught within a few hours in the morning, and sometimes not a bite the whole day. Being a reservoir purposed for irrigation supplying all of Central Oregon, weather and snow pack greatly impact the Kokanee population from year to year.
In the recent past, the levels of the reservoir had been drained to extremely low levels, and the Kokanee populations had suffered because of it. For a few years the catch was basically a campout instead of a catch, thus the trip to Wallowa in eastern Oregon was justified. But amazingly enough the fish are resilient and the last 2 years have made the catch worthwhile and hopefully the trend will continue to improve. As the saying goes: "The fishing was great, the catching on the other hand"... Fishing with family and friends for a week can't be beat, no matter what the catch yields. But, we are here for specific reason, "Bent Rods"... So our fingers are crossed that the spring of 2026 will produce that fisherman's dream of all 4 rods going off at once, all day long!!!