Fishing Hyatt Lake
Southern Oregon
Hyatt Lake is a sister lake to Howard Prairie apx. five miles apart. If you want to try Howard Prairie one day and Hyatt the next, it makes for an interesting weekend. You can reach Hyatt Lake by taking Hwy. 62 out of Medford, turn right on Hwy. 140, turn right on Hwy. 37, at the end of Hwy. 37 turn right on Dead Indian Memorial Hwy. When you see the Howard Prairie turnoff on the left take it. You will drive right past Howard Prairie and continue another few miles on the same road to reach Hyatt Lake. Another way to reach Hyatt Lake is to take Hwy. 66 out of Ashland past Emigrant Lake about 19 miles to the Hyatt Lake turnoff on the left.
Hyatt Lake, like Howard Prairie has great scenery, with good forest land and snow capped peaks in view most of the year. The area around Hyatt lake is filled with deer and other wildlife which can be seen around the lake at times. At 5000' elevation it is slightly higher than Howard Prairie. Make sure you bring some warm clothes even towards the summer months, when the wind comes up it can get real chilly, and the wind almost always comes up in the afternoon.
BLM has a very nice campground at Hyatt Lake with 72 camp units. The campground has drinking water, cement boat ramp, swimming area, and 45 picnic units. For mushroom hunters the Hyatt Lake area is good in the spring and fall for two different kinds of mushrooms. There is another campground, not as nice, but not bad, with less campsites and a boat ramp.
The resort at Hyatt Lake has good food, a small tackle shop, and a boat ramp. The folks at the tackle shop seem to keep track of what is working so be sure to check with them before you start fishing. The prices on the food are not bad, in May of 1996 a 1/3 pound hamburger, with fries and all the trimmings for just over $5.00. The resort charges a $1.50 to launch your boat and park for the day. Another place to eat at Hyatt Lake is a place called Campers Cove on the west end of the lake, I understand the food is good there too.
The fishing at Hyatt Lake is real good this year. For the last two years the water level has been good and the trout have been doing well. Hyatt has had some real problems in the past with somebody illegally introducing small bullhead catfish. If someone wants to put fish in a body of water you would think they would put in a fish that would at least grow to 10 or 15 pounds, not these poor excuse for catfish! The catfish over populated the lake and trout fishing went to pot. All the fish in Hyatt were poisoned, and the trout re-stocked in the late 80's. Low water conditions in the early 90's left Hyatt in a questionable status. All this is over now and it's easy to tell the fishing has improved by the number of boats on the lake last week. Pictures at the resort store show very good numbers with reasonable size in the 10 to 14 inch range.
Fishing at Hyatt is a predominately a still fishing show. The popular spots include the stand of dead trees on the north end of the lake, the smaller stand of trees on the west side of the lake and around the dam. To see where to go just look for the most boats. Still fishing seems to work best with cheese, power bait and worms, the old standby's. Hyatt is not a deep lake, while wandering around last week I did not notice anywhere where the water was over 35 feet deep, I did not check by the dam. For trolling in the spring we did well in 15 to 22 feet of water, later this summer you would do better fishing the deepest water in the channel. The channel is just east of the center of the lake and runs from the dam to just past the stand of trees where all the still fishing is done. Hyatt can grow some real nice trout, in 1994 I caught a nice 41/2 pound rainbow while trolling a flatfish in 7 feet of water.
Hyatt is a great place to spend a day fishing, make sure to try it! See you on the water. Don
1997 Update!
Fishing was very good early this year. Jack and I went several times and caught our limit of 14" to 20" trout! It was too good, we put the boat in at 8:30am and were headed home by 10am the same morning. When you get home that early it leaves a lot of time for chores you went fishing to avoid.
2006
Welcome to Hyatt! Lot's of illegal Bass mixed in with the trout, same old thing.
2007
Have some fly fishing friends went here early. They caught a ton of Bass over by the snags.