Lake Ethel Fishing Guide, Chelan County, Washington

• Overview

  Look for Lake Ethel in Chelan County, Washington. The bank is 5,509 feet above sea level. Surface area runs to about 15 acres — small enough to read in one session. It is high ground by Washington standards. Start from Leavenworth, 15 miles down the road. For a city, Bellevue is 62 miles off. Rules here are straightforward: one county, one set of rules.

• Where to Fish on Lake Ethel

  No depth figure appears in our records, so the bank has to tell you. Bays and points beat straight shoreline every time on water like this. Weed, then depth: that is the order to fish a water of this kind. Open biodiversity records for Chelan County list cutthroat trout, rainbow trout and sockeye salmon. Several of these carry legal protection or closed seasons; the rulebook comes before the rod. Fish Lake Ethel to its features, not to its size.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Between January at about 24°F and August at about 59°F, the water has a wide range to work through. Winter shuts things down for a spell, then spring reopens them fast. The freeze runs deep into the year, with break-up near early April. Open water usually runs from early April until about late November. Look to early summer and the first cool weeks of autumn. That shapes the year on Lake Ethel.

• Tackle & Baits

  Ownership and access are not documented in what we hold. Nothing is mapped in the way of a ramp or car park within a short radius. Bass water: a Texas-rigged worm near cover, a spinnerbait when you need to cover ground. Sort the permit out before you load the car. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. Should this one be busy, Loch Eileen is 0.6 miles off. Where Lake Ethel is concerned, a local answer beats a written one.