Lake Chelan

Overview

Lake Chelan is Washington's largest natural lake and, at 1,486 feet, the third deepest in the United States after Crater Lake and Tahoe, a glacially overdeepened trough that runs 50.5 miles from the town of Chelan to Stehekin at the head of the lake. WDFW lists 32,623 acres at an elevation of 1,102 feet, the level set by the Chelan dam completed in 1927. Road access ends about 20 miles up the south shore at Twenty-Five Mile Creek State Park, and beyond that the only way up-lake is by boat, floatplane or the Lady of the Lake passenger ferry, which runs year-round to Stehekin inside Lake Chelan National Recreation Area, where the Stehekin River enters. The fish are a cold-water mix. Kokanee are the volume fishery, and WDFW is specific: fishing is usually best from mid-April through June, before the schools drop toward the thermocline for summer, with adults leaving to spawn in tributaries in late October and November. Lake trout are the trophies; the state record has been broken here several times, most recently a 35.63-pound fish in February 2013. Naturally reproducing landlocked Chinook are present in lower numbers and turn up while fishing for lake trout and kokanee, and WDFW plants catchable westslope cutthroat in June and July that average about 12 inches with some to 17. Smallmouth bass hold the lower lake near Chelan and Manson. The National Park Service lists cutthroat and rainbow in the Stehekin River and does not list bull trout in the lake, so plan the upper lake around trout and kokanee at the river mouth, not char, and expect the afternoon wind that funnels down the canyon.