Upper Priest Lake in Bonner County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Upper Priest Lake is set in Bonner County, Idaho. The land about it is mixed forest. At 1,340 acres this is proper open water rather than a pond. At about 8.0 miles of edge, most people work one arm at a time. Size puts it in the front rank of our Bonner County list. Bonners Ferry sits 27 miles from here and is the nearest stop. Creston is 28 miles and Salmo 33 miles. No county line comes close, which keeps the paperwork simple.

• Where to Fish on Upper Priest Lake

  Depth is not on record here, so the bank has to tell you. Read the surface for the wind lane, then fish the edge of it. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. Records held for Bonner County cover rainbow trout, cutthroat trout and sockeye salmon. Several of these carry legal protection or closed seasons; the rulebook comes before the rod. On Upper Priest Lake the first feature you find is usually worth a session.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Averages here run 62°F at the top of summer and 23°F at the bottom of winter. Winter puts a hard lid on this one. Count the season from break-up, usually late March. The season between ice runs from about late March to late November. Right after break-up, and again as the nights sharpen, is when to go. Anyone fishing Upper Priest Lake regularly works to that calendar.

• Tackle & Baits

  We have no record of the rules that apply on this bank. Records list it as a natural water body rather than an impoundment. Mapping shows a campsite some 0.9 miles from the water. For the trout, small spinners and a box of nymphs cover both approaches. Check whether a boat is allowed before you tow one. Where parking is tight, arriving early solves most problems. Bottle Lake, 4.8 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Nothing here settles the position at Upper Priest Lake for certain.