Great lake!

[Werand]

I went camping at a lake called lake offut. The only flaw was the bathroom,Lol! No fish caught,But they had a general store filled with baits,Ice,Desserts,ANd even a few nets! No fishing rods to but that I saw,But also chips,And tons more! You can also rent boats,And many campers like seeing this orange cat,Probably a stray,Been around for several years! I may be a kid,But it was great! The Manager had karaoke every Saturday! It was perfect.

[gpc]

Lake Offut is a great lake. They raise fish at the resort and the WDFW plants a large amount of fish too. The lady that runs the resort is very nice as well.They also have a bunch of fishing derbys the next one is for fathers day. Also the boat rentals mentioned are very fairly priced. If you havnt been to offut its a must, and if your from seattle its an easy trip, especially with gas prices

[Fish-or-man?]

Here here! I think Offut is my favorite small lake to fish. I think about every other time I've been there my fishing partner or I have caught a trout in the 14-17 inch range. I recall one trip I thought I was pretty great because I caught a fat 16 incher, but the wind was taken out of my sails because when I got back to the boat launch a float tubin' fly fisherman had caught a 21 and 23 incher! I don't know a lot about fly fishing, but he was using somekind of really little white nymph. These were magnificant trout too, not triploids, these guys' heads were actually in porportion to their huge bodies. So Offut may be a great lake for fly fishing; I know there's times of the year when the water surface is being pecked to pieces by hungry trout! Offut also has populations of perch, largemouth, bluegill, and brown bullheads... and smallmouth aparently (there's a picture on this site of a guy with a huge smallie from Offut). It seems like the numbers of perch aren't what they once were though. I recall seven or eight years ago I'd have trips where they'd almost be a nuisance. The last three or four times I've gone anyone in my boat has only caught one perch (although it was a decent sized one).

[gpc]

The last time I was there was in early July. The fishing was slow, this is a very rare thing at lake offut. When I talked to Becky the owner she said the best thing to catch trout was a prayer LOL. So we decided to target perch, in about 4 hours of fishing we caught 1 perch and adout 2 dozen 5" trout a bunch of 4" largemouth and a couple of blugill. So the perch have fallen off a bit. When fish-or-man mentioned the smallmouth population, I heard its almost a myth, there are very few smallmouth in the lake and nobody knoes where they came from. There is a group of old men who target only smallies and keep their lips zipped on how or where they catch the fish. The other way they catch the smallies is by accident, people fishing for largemouth and catch a smallie. Im not sure if the group of old men is fact or fiction, its just a rumor Iv heard. But they also plant this lake with some huge cutts as well, I think they got 500 jumbo cutts but Im not sure. Its cool too because the net pens are in the middle of the fishing dock, and they have a gumball machine with pellet food for the fish and you can pay a quarter for a handful of food, and feed the fish, there are some huge fish in there

[Fish-or-man?]

Ah crud, that's terrible news. The last time I was there was August 12th (reported it on here) and my trip was basically like your's (gpc). I just shrugged it off to being a mediocre fisherman; I figured it was a one time thing. But if you and I had poor fishing last summer and Werand just had a no-fish trip, perhaps the fishery is in serious decline. That's interesting info about the smallmouths. I personally have never heard of one being caught out of there, but if you type "offut" into the photo search engine a picture of a 5.25 ponder out of Offut comes up.

I'm going to be in Olympia June 15th through the 17th. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to Offut and see if things have improved or not. I see the reports are kind of mixed right now. I forgot about that gumball machine on the dock, that thing is a lot of fun! Like Werand said even if fishing is terrible a good time is had at Offut.

[gpc]

I think Im going to stay at offut resort this weekend. I want to get one of the spots right on the water. I heard you have to park 100 yards away to stay on the water. I have never acctually stayed at the resort,when I fish it I stay at Millerslavania state park a couple of miles away on deep lake. But I just got a car topper and want to be able to camp on the water so I dont have to pull the boat out of the water every night.

Have you ever stayed at offut fish-or-man? If so how was it?

[Fish-or-man?]

I have not stayed at the Offut Lake resort; I've heard good things though. I probably would of stayed at it by now, but most of my family lives in Centralia and most of friends live in Olympia, so it's just a 20 minute drive either way... I was just looking at their cabin names, ones called "Bass Ackwards".

[gpc]

[quote="Fish-or-man?"]I have not stayed at the Offut Lake resort]

LOL thats funny I forgot all about that until I read your post. Yeah the reason why Iv never stayed there is it says you have to stay 2 days minimum, and being how the weather cahanges how it does on this side of the mountains, I dint want to be stuck in the rain for a night. Im too stuburn to eat a $20 campsite LOL, so Id be in the rain for sure. At the state park you can stay 1 night if you want. On the other side of the cascade Ill stay for a week no problem but the weather out here is too unpredictable