Dang, it turned cold. Many evenings saw temperatures in single digits in some areas of the region. I got out on the water once. That may have been one time too many given the conditions. I am hoping that we will have some warmer weather when it stops snowing up here in Leavenworth.

I have wanted to check out the walleye fishing on Potholes Reservoir for some time. There have been some pretty decent days catching walleye here, either casting blade baits or trolling very slowly on the big reservoir.

When I checked the weather for the coming week, it looked like Tuesday would be the best day to try it. The temperature was forecasted to reach the mid-30s, without much wind. I called my friend James Lebow, who lives in Moses Lake, and he was willing to meet me at the Blythe launch with his boat.

He was tempted to call me that morning to say that it was really too cold to fish. The wind was blowing more than forecasted, but he knew I was already halfway there, driving down from Leavenworth. It looked nasty when I met him, but hey, we were there. By the time we reached the area we wanted to fish we realized how cold it was. I was wearing a heated jacket under a winter coat, and had my heated socks turned on. That didn’t help my hands which I had to use to rig my rods. I got my blade bait tied on before my fingers stopped working completely.

I noticed just one other boat on the reservoir, and that disappeared not long after we got to our fishing spot. We were getting knocked around and not marking any fish, but still lasted an hour and a half. Mostly we talked about where we would fish next. Someplace where we could build a fire. The photo with this week’s column is one of my favorites. It shows my wife Eileen, scraping snow from the windshield of the boat at the ramp at the State Park on Lake Chelan. It turned out to be a sunny day, but it started with a snowstorm in Leavenworth on the way there.

Even though we have some fairly warm and sunny days in the winter here in our region, sometimes it gets too cold even for me to go fishing. Yes, I tried it last Wednesday and it wasn’t any fun, so now is the perfect time to get my gear in order.

My garage is in a state of severe disarray. I tend to grab what I need for a particular trip, then just throw it somewhere and grab what I need for the next fishing trip and do the same thing. What a mess.

In addition to sorting out and putting things where I can find them when I need them next, I will go through all my reels and clean them up and replace line as needed. The first step in this process is getting some fresh filler spools of Izorline Spectra braid, monofilament, and fluorocarbon lines. I put braid on all my spinning, casting and salmon reels, and then “top shot” them with the appropriate amount of mono or fluorocarbon line.

 There is an excellent knot shown on the Fishing TV Page of my website for joining braid to monofilament or fluorocarbon line. This will take some time, but I will be ready to go this spring and summer.

As I reported earlier, the annual Seattle Boat Show took place virtually this year. A great deal of effort went into creating an online experience. Over 5,200 people registered for the event. It offered the opportunity to shop nearly 900 boats and had 218 exhibitors. They were able to view 200 hours of original educational and boating content. The folks that registered for the show got “tickets” that provided access to different levels of content.

For just five bucks you could tour the show and get one look at the seminars. At the highest level you could view the seminars as many times as you wanted and also access programing from Salmon University. It was interesting to learn that more than 30 percent of the people that registered, opted for the highest ticket price of just under $90.
This was a monumental undertaking in a short window of time. From what I saw they did an amazing job. The result is being studied by other trade shows and industries as an example of what is possible to provide online.

Every year the process known broadly as North of Falcon begins. This is when the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, tribal co-managers, sport fishing interests, commercial interests and others determine participate in setting state-managed salmon fishing seasons for 2021.

There is one of a long series of meeting that begin on February 26th. These are followed by regional meetings in both Western and Eastern Washington. There are many opportunities for the public to observe and provide comment during this process. The schedule is available by going to the WDFW website. Look under news releases for the North of Falcon public meeting schedule website. Participating in this process is in some ways even better than the in-person meetings. Now people can attend even more of these virtual meetings online.

If you haven’t seen the salmon forecasts there is some good and bad news for some of the more popular fisheries in our region. The returns of spring Chinook to the Columbia remain in decline for the most part. It is hoped that the continuing discussions with the State of Oregon will result in a reduction of the use of gillnets in the main stem Columbia that have been approved by Washington State.

The return of summer Chinook continues to improve if the forecast plays out. Last year’s actual return was 65,494. The forecast for the 2021 season is for 77,600. Disappointing is the forecast for the sockeye return to Lake Wenatchee. It is forecast to be 27,300 in 2021. It was 56,111 in 2020. The return of the Columbia River stock of sockeye is anticipated to be 127,300 in 2021. It was 273,667 in 2020.

Keep your fingers crossed for warmer weather. I expect the fishing for giant kokanee on Lake Roosevelt to really take off soon, and I want to be out there after them!