Happy New Year everyone. All my best wishes to you for a safe and happy new year, full of fishing adventures. We are fortunate to live in an area where the fishing fun never stops. There are big trout being caught on Lake Roosevelt and Rufus Woods Reservoir and hopefully, we will have cold enough weather to allow for good ice fishing conditions on area lakes.

I have noticed a dramatic increase in the popularity of ice fishing over the past few years. More and more people are buying ice augers, portable heaters and even folding fishing shacks to fish through the ice in the winter. There are several lakes scattered throughout the region that attract big crowds on the weekends when the ice is thick enough to safely support anglers. Last year, people were drilling holes in thick ice on Bonaparte Lake, near Tonasket at Thanksgiving. There’s over five inches of ice on the lake now, and that’s one of the few that are frozen. I wanted to mention Bonaparte because the resort is having an ice fishing derby there on January 27th. It may seem early to mention the derby, but it was very popular and lodging in the area is limited. They did their first one last year and got almost 400 people to turn out for it. Another ice fishing event to consider is the 19th Annual NW Ice Fishing Festival on Sidley Lake near Oroville. It is scheduled for January 14th this year. I have attended this one, and in addition to fishing fun there’s great food available and other activities.

I did some checking on the elevation of several lakes, to give people an idea of where they may find good conditions for ice fishing this season. Bonaparte Lake is at 3,556 feet and that’s why they have ice thick enough for fishing, in spite of our warm weather so far this winter. The resort on Bonaparte will open in early January and has cabins for rent. Sidley Lake is at 3,683 feet in elevation, so there should be a good layer of ice on this lake right now. Patterson Lake, near Winthrop, which is popular for trout, kokanee and perch through the ice is at 2,391 feet and close behind it is Curlew Lake at 2,333 feet. Curlew is known for producing the biggest perch in the region and anglers travel from long distances to get them. Tiffany’s Resort on Curlew does have cabins for rent and the weekend availability goes fast. There are several motels and restaurants in Republic. Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee is at 1,933. It is very popular, with perch, trout, kokanee and some triploids taken through the ice. It will be a while before there will be safe ice on Fish Lake. I always check the webcam at www.lakewenatcheeinfo.com to see if people are fishing on the ice before I go up there. Palmer Lake, which is also a popular winter lake, with perch, trout and burbot available to anglers. It is only at 1,150 feet. I will be checking with local sources to learn if people are fishing on the ice and will keep you posted. This week’s photo is of a group of anglers at Fish Lake last winter.

One of my best sources of information for what’s happening on Lake Roosevelt is Kevin Witte, who lives in Kettle Falls and has a guide service for kokanee, trout, walleye, and sturgeon. In the winter he chases kokanee and rainbow all the way down to Grand Coulee Dam. We did a video on the rainbow fishing out of Spring Canyon a couple of years ago and caught a bunch of nice rainbow. Kevin said that fishing for rainbow that are averaging 17 or 18 inches is even better this year. Keller is where he is launching right now, as the lake level hasn’t been dropped at all. He is trolling Kokabow blades with either orange or pink hookies at about 1.2 to 1.4 mph. Flicker Shads in the size 5 or 7 are also working well. He has heard of some kokanee being caught, but not in great numbers. The kokanee fishing will really get rolling when the lake level is being lowered and the daphnia that the kokanee feed on are drawn down into the lower end of the big reservoir. Remember trout anglers, only clipped rainbow can be kept. All trout with an adipose fin must be released. They are native red band rainbow and are protected.

Many years ago, when I was living in Lake Chelan, a couple of local bass anglers invited me to go bass fishing in December. I thought it was a crazy idea but went along. They took me to Barker Canyon Cove and showed me how to “stitch” with plastic leeches. This meant very slow trolling with a light weight on the bottom. We filled the live well with big smallmouth. Earlier this winter, while trolling for walleye, we were catching a surprising number of big largemouth bass on Potholes Reservoir. Looking back at some of the photos I had taken on Potholes in the early winter, I see that this wasn’t unusual. I know anglers are still out chasing walleye on Potholes, and if you’re a bass angler, you may want to get down there, too.

Fishing for trout off Medicare Beach is also popular right now and will be until Potholes freezes over. Anglers should note that there can be very good perch fishing on Lind Coulee when it freezes. There is another good reason to travel to this area. The perch fishing at the I-90 Bridge is still great. Boats are anchoring just above the bridge and people are casting from the rip rap bank and getting bucketfuls of nice perch. Take advantage of this mild weather and get out and get some fish!

This is the time of year for outdoor shows, and the first one in Eastern Washington is the Tri-Cities Sportsmen Show. This will be the 30th year of this show and it is scheduled for January 26th through the 28th at the HAPO Center in Pasco.

Whether it’s outdoors or inside there’s a lot to look forward to this winter!