EasternWashingtonOutdoor: Lake Chopaka, Okanogen County, Washington

Lake Chopaka

This is one of my all time favorite trips every spring and I try to make it every year. Lake Chopaka is where my love for fishing with good friends was born. This is one of those trips that you start planning while hunched over a fly tying vise during the dark days of winter. Like a little kid you pull out your fishing gear to start preparing two or three months in advance. You will need dozens of chronomids, buy every color of v-rib that you can find and scud hooks in four different sizes. Also stock your fly boxes with ‘Chopaka Mayflies’, a version of a grey parachute adams that replaces the tail and wing with dark deer hair as well as using brown hackle to wrap around the post. I have had epic days sight casting to huge rainbows who gobble these flies readily, we’re talking 20-30 fish days, with some of them over 28”. Chopaka also boasts a damsel fly migration that has every fish in the lake pouncing on anything green and stripped on a medium sink line. I have also landed some large fish by fishing leeches at night. The campground is one of the coolest I have ever spent time in, it flanks one side of the lake and has restrooms, and a few sites that have a structure with a picnic table underneath.

This was taken from the road above the campground looking up the lake. The whole left side is available for camping.

Once you are here, there really is no reason to drive out of the mountains to go get forgotten supplies. Basically, if you forget something you are screwed. My friends and I have also lost plenty of tires to the rocky road up to the lake, check your spare and make sure you have a working jack. We have also had a few friends that were not smart enough to get to the lake, bring a map, or you might end up spending the night stuck in snow or mud on the top of the mountain.

How to get here: From Spokane you have three options, your final destination is Tonasket, WA. Tonasket is pretty much the middle of the state a few miles south of the Canadian border. You can head out Highway 2 and either cut down at Wilbur to the FREE Keller Ferry to cross the Columbia and continue north to Republic, WA. Or you can stay on Highway 2 passing Grand Coulee and then pointing it north to Omak, WA. Finally you have the third option, and my favorite. You can take 395 north out of Spokane to Kettle Falls, WA, and go over Sherman Pass to Republic. Sherman Pass is awesome!!!! I always try to take the Keller Ferry on the way to Chopaka and then come back over Sherman Pass. The history of these two areas is what Washington was founded upon.

From Tonasket you head north to the town of Loomis, there is nothing here, a few houses and an unreliable gas station. Top off your tank in Tonasket and head up the road. Just out of Loomis this is what you will see:

Heading north from Loomis, the Chopaka grade reveals itself

If you look to the lower right of the hill in front of you, the road up is barely visible. This area is known as Tote’s Cooley or the Chopaka Grade. You will turn left on Chopaka Lake Road and drive through some farm land before you come to the fork in the road where you will start your climb to the top. Use your head, I don’t think anyone would survive going over the side – there is no guard rail!

You can see the road in this photo

When you arrive at the top of the hill, stop, get out of your car and crack a beer. The sunrise was chasing me up the hill due to the fact that I left Spokane the night before. I was a happy camper at the top.

This is a photo from the top of the Chopaka Grade, looking back at Loomis.

I cannot tell you where exactly to turn to go down to the lake, it’s one of those things you just never forget. You will travel almost an hour on a windy dirt road before you break off down to the lake, use your outdoor skills to figure it out. Up the mountain, into a valley, follow the most warn path – simple.

We take a shortcut to gather wood on the way in: