I still have some things to do in the way of getting my rods and reels all set up the way I want. I guess that work is never really done as we move through the fishing season and target different species. As you can well imagine, I found some things that I thought were lost. When I cleaned up my tackle storage area, there were some nice surprises and some not so nice.

I have a cardboard box that is filled with either partially used or full spools of line of different types and line test. You know, monofilament, fluorocarbon and braid. I also have a plastic soda carrier that is filled with scents and cures. Well, sometime over the winter some kind of rodent chewed a hole into a bottle of blood tuna scent. This happened to be right above the carton full of fishing line. Yuk! Fortunately, it only dripped into one corner of the line box, and I was able to salvage most of lines.

There are certain fisheries that I set aside particular lures that I use when fishing them. For instance, there is a special box that is filled with a selection of plugs and lures that I use at Omak Lake, for the Lahotan cutthroat that inhabit the lake. I found a lure bag that had some great plugs in it that I know were for this specific purpose. Now I will have them the next time I go. By the way, I was provided the planting schedule for the Colville Tribal lakes, and each year Omak Lake gets a huge number of Lohatan planted in the lake. This year there was almost 90,000 put into the lake. That’s why the fishing on Omak is so terrific, with no shortage of cutthroat to be caught, that’s for sure.

Occasionally people give me tackle. Sometimes it’s whole tackle boxes that they picked up at a yard sale. They figure what I can’t use I will pass onto organizations that have events for kids. I have donated lots of stuff to these events over the years. Every once in a while there are some very unusual items in the tackle boxes that I sort through. There are some very interesting lures in these boxes. Some I have never seen before. The photo in this week’s column is of one of these unusual lures.

I know that a lot of anglers are also taking this time to browse the internet to learn different techniques on fishing for different species. I want to remind folks that I have some videos and shows posted on the Fishing TV Page of my web site, and there are many others archived. You can click on the archives to look at many of them on the Fishing TV Page. Right now, they are on spring walleye fishing. Also, the Spring issue of my free E-Letter is available. It’s packed with Spring fishing ideas. Also, I want to remind folks that although sporting goods stores are closed, I have sponsors that do business via the web. Please visit my web site at www.fishingmagician.com and click on the logos to see what they have to offer. Plus, all of our guides are out of business right now. I am running these ads at no charge during this period of uncertainty.

You can click on some of the guide services on my homepage, too. It would help them out if you book a trip for the future and maybe buy a gift certificate for friends and family. Anything we can do now to help keep these businesses afloat will assure that they will be there when we need them. I will keep my tackle organizing tips and tricks coming until I can give everyone a real fishing report.

As we get closer to May 4th and the potential of getting back outdoors, I made some calls to see if the fishing at our lowland lakes will be worth the effort. According to Region 2 staff, and I can assume this goes for other WDFW regions in the state, the trout plants are being done pretty much on schedule. So, there should be plenty of fish available when we can get back out fishing.

I also checked in with the Colville Tribe about the releases of triploid rainbow trout into Rufus Woods Reservoir. I learned that they started making plants in February of this year, through April so far. The total number of new fish that have been released is just slightly under 20,000. Good fishing is anticipated on Rufus Woods this late spring and summer.

I also found out that the Colville Tribe has received grant funding to expand their ability to monitor and remove aquatic and invasive species, particularly quagga and zebra mussels from Lake Roosevelt and Rufus Woods. The spread of these into Washington waters could be devastating. Check it out on web and you will understand why there is so much concern.

As May 4th gets closer there is a lot of speculation on how we will begin the process of getting back to “normalcy”. Many hope that there will be some sort of plan to get people back outdoors. There are a lot of ideas being considered. One was suggested to me by a former commission member, who lives in the far southeastern corner of the state, in a very small community. He suggested that people be able to hunt in the county where they reside. I thought this had merit and could even apply to fishing. That way the cross-state travel would be avoided, and much less pressure would be put on the land and water accesses. There would be no need for overnight lodging or even meals. It will be interesting to see if this idea moves forward. It will have to be coordinated with all the other agencies that manage our public lands and water accesses, and even the counties and city governments.

Stay safe, and maybe I will see you on the water sometime soon.