The weather is turning more chilly, but the fishing is getting hot on a couple of fronts here in Central Washington. Once again the bright spots in the winter fishing are found on Lake Roosevelt and Lake Chelan. Some big kokanee are being caught on Roosevelt again this winter, and things are starting to improve for those who like to chase kokanee on Lake Chelan.

I was going to be away most of the week at meetings, and the only open window I had to do anything fishing wise was a week ago on Monday afternoon. So, a fly rod was tossed in the back of my truck and the F-150 was pointed in the direction of Rocky Ford Creek near Ephrata. On my way through Ephrata I saw Darc Knobel’s truck parked in front of his shop, the Desert Fly Angler. I just had to stop and say hi, as we hadn’t seen each other for a while. It was good to talk to Darc and to look over the great fly selection he has for Rocky Ford and the other quality fly fishing lakes that are nearby. He always has a few tidbits of information about how the fishing is at the Ford, too.

The visit was short as the stream and its big trout were waiting, and my time was short. There are many good fishing spots along the one-mile long access to Rocky Ford, but I like the upper end. My rod was already rigged with an indicator and small Scud from my last visit and that was what I tossed out. One of my favorite methods of fishing here is with a Mini Leech with an Ultra Scud trailer. Sticking with the indicator and Scud would hopefully reduce the amount of casting it would take to get a strike. The temperature was hovering around freezing and having rod guides clogged with ice isn’t fun. Casting with a high background of reeds adds to the challenge when fishing at the top end of the Ford.

On my second cast the indicator bobbed, and I hooked a small, but very fat, rainbow. After I released the fish and one more it was evident that there were a bunch of these new plants in the stream. They were dimpling the water’s surface all along the area that could be reached with my casts from the small platform available to me. There were plenty of other good spots downstream from where I started, but plenty of time isn’t what I had. That’s what makes Rock Ford such a special place to go fishing in the winter. No matter how cold it gets, it doesn’t freeze. It is spring fed and stays at a temperature that keeps the water open all winter long. The photo in this week’s column is of one of the trout splashing on the surface at the Ford.

I got a call from Tim Peone with the Spokane Tribe, who is involved with the joint efforts of the Spokanes and the WDFW on rearing and releasing the triploid rainbow trout into Lake Roosevelt. He was getting back to me about the tag that I found on one of the rainbow caught on Lake Roosevelt a couple of weeks ago. Tim told me that the tag information really helps the tribe and the WDFW track their efforts to improve the trout fishing on the big reservoir. They are diversifying stocks to provide better fishing year-round rather than the traditional spring and winter cycles. This particular tag came from a release of 10,000 trout, of which half were made up of what they call the Spokane stock and the other a Trout Lodge stock. One group was marked with a white tag, like mine, and the other a blue tag. The fish in this program go into net pens at a much larger size and are released at a much larger size, resulting in bigger fish available to anglers over the summer months. The plan with this program is to provide bigger fish that people like to catch in the summer, and they are real fighters, too, as they are from a domesticated steelhead strain. If you get a tagged fish, be sure to call the number provided with the information, it really helps.

While I was speaking with Tim about the joint efforts of the Tribe and the WDFW supplying triploid rainbow trout to Lake Roosevelt I learned some things that I wasn’t aware. I did know that there are 750,000 fish released each year into the reservoir, but I didn’t know that that the Tribe, the WDFW and volunteers help maintain the net pens and feed the fish prior to release. There are a total of 63 net pens placed at various locations, starting at Keller on the lower reservoir. I have seen the ones at Keller but didn’t know that there were so many others in place further up the big lake. He also told me that there is an effort to improve the trout fishing in the Spokane Arm, and they are releasing the same fish that are being grown at the pens on Rufus Woods. There are already fair numbers of rainbow being caught up the Arm weighing up to 2 pounds, but there are also some tipping the scales at 4 to 5 pounds. The program is just getting started but it could provide some very exciting fishing in the near future.

I have been getting some photos from folks that are fishing Lake Roosevelt and targeting the big kokanee up there. Some of these kokanee are stretching the measuring tape to close to 20 inches. I am very encouraged by the number of the big fish being caught already this winter. It’s early, in my opinion for this exciting winter fishery. Excellent numbers of rainbow to 20 inches are also being landed by the kokanee anglers, too.

My brother Rick sees a lot of anglers as they come into gear up at Hooked on Toys in Wenatchee. He tells me that good catches of kokanee of 12 to 13 inches are coming in now from Lake Chelan. He suggests fishing either below Wapato Point in 100 feet of water and run your gear down to 60 to 75 feet.

Lake Roosevelt or Lake Chelan? Man I wish I was on either one of them tomorrow!