Mirror and Cottonwood lakes

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Dave M
Warrant Officer
Posts: 132
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 12:34 am
Location: Auburn,wa

Mirror and Cottonwood lakes

Post by Dave M » Fri Jul 17, 2015 2:28 am

Has anyone fished these? WDFW says there are Golden trout in Mirror and it looks like an easy hike in.

tframe
Angler
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Oct 03, 2014 6:12 pm

Re: Mirror and Cottonwood lakes

Post by tframe » Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:46 pm

Mirror Lake does have golden trout and the hike is only a mile and very easy. The only golden trout I have ever caught was about 8" from Mirror and caught it on a spinner fishing from shore on the far end of the lake. Beautiful fish but they are hard to find and doesn't seem to have as many fish in the lake as one would think. The lake is very, very deep meaning over 100 ft in my opinion in the middle. Tested this one time when I brought my raft out and got spooled trying to hit bottom in some spots.

Cottonwood lake is loaded with brookies and even pulled a 15" brown out of there a couple months ago. Have to have a raft to fish it as bank access is extremely limited.

Good Luck

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Dave M
Warrant Officer
Posts: 132
Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2014 12:34 am
Location: Auburn,wa

Re: Mirror and Cottonwood lakes

Post by Dave M » Sun Jul 19, 2015 8:14 pm

Thanks. Made it out to Mirror today. Had 1 follow and another come out of the water as the rooster tail was coming out. The follow was pretty deep when I saw it, didnt look like a rainbow, lighter in color so guessing that was a golden. The other was dark on the back for the brief second I saw it. Wind was blowing pretty steady so it made it harder to see into the water. I am sure I will be back up there when I have more time and will try cottonwood.
The hike wasnt bad, the lot was full and I didnt want to try and drive to the upper lot having never seen it and only heard horror stories about it. My truck would have made it though. Saw a couple in a mercedes SUV that made it past the worst part then stopped. It had pretty low clearance. WOuldnt do it without 4WD though.

cwbraue
Petty Officer
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Joined: Mon Jun 06, 2011 12:08 am

Re: Mirror and Cottonwood lakes

Post by cwbraue » Mon Aug 24, 2015 9:48 am

I was at Cotton wood in June or July I believe and the fish wouldn't touch lures or powerbait. There were a few feeding regularly on bugs, but they wouldn't even look at spinners or spoons. There didn't seem to be many fish left, at least there were only a few feeding on bugs so maybe most of them have been caught.

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