April has started with wonderful weather. You need to get your new fishing license if you want to get out on the year-round lakes, to practice for the general opening of the lowland lakes trout season, which is the fourth Saturday of April. Meanwhile, there are walleye and bass to fish for. They are starting to wake up on our area reservoirs.
When I want to know what’s happening on Potholes Reservoir in the early spring, I can always call Shelby Ross. If there are walleye to be caught he will know. There are a lot of anglers that look forward to the walleye fishing on Potholes and they will be glad to hear that fish are being caught. Shelby put eleven walleye in the boat recently and he noted that they were all males. He figures the big females are spawning and won’t be feeding for a while. He said there are a few anglers jigging for the walleye, but he prefers to troll spinners and bottom bouncers. That way he is covering more water. I was fishing with my friend Brian Neilson in his boat. It looks like we were in Lind Coulee, which is a great place to start on Potholes in the spring. I often find fish in the Coulee and then just out of the mouth of the Coulee at Perch Point.
I talked to Nic Alexander, one of the organizers of the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, the other day. He was busy getting sponsors for the event, and rattled off the names of several companies that were already providing prizes. There are always plenty of great things being awarded to those who are winners in the derby. Whether they are winners or not, the kids always get something for being a part of the event. The Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge starts on Friday, April 12th, with lots of things planned for the youngsters. The highlight is the “trout pond” that is set up off the beach at Coulee Playland. Thanks to Pacific Seafoods, the pond is loaded with fat rainbow for the kids to catch. In addition to the trout pond, there will be casting instructions, a s’more station, face painting, gold panning, food vendors and even live music. The fun starts at 1 p.m. and lasts till 5 p.m. On Saturday the tournament begins, and anglers will be out looking for trout, bass, walleye, and whitefish. You can learn more about the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge and even register in advance by going to the Reel Recreation website.
Nic Alexander, one of the organizers with Reel Recreation thought it would be fun to make a run at getting a “triple fish” and give anglers some pointers on how to do it. He recruited Austin Moser and me to fish with him to catch a walleye, bass, and trout in the same day. We started our day looking for walleye and Austin took us to one of his favorite areas between Steamboat Rock and Barker Canyon and Nic got a nice walleye fishing with bottom bouncers and spinners. A green sparkly Smile Blade in fifty feet of water was the best lure. With that done we tried for smallmouth bass. Nic directed us to some of the areas he catches smallmouth, on jigs and jerk baits, and we worked our way up to Osborne Bay. We were casting to the broken rock along the highway when a smallmouth grabbed the Senko I was dragging across the bottom. Now we just needed to get a trout. Austin ran out a variety of crank baits on side planers at the very top end of Banks and Nic reeled in a dandy rainbow. Yea! We did it! Better yet, I shot a video of how we did it, and you can find it on the Dave Graybill YouTube channel. Look for the one that says Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge. It should be at the top of the playlist.
It’s April and if you are an avid angler you need to renew your fishing license for the season. Fishing licenses are valid from April 1st to March 31st of the following year. If you aren’t in a hurry, and don’t plan to fish until the opening of the general lowland lakes season, you can get your license online. Just log into fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov. Your documents will arrive in about 10 days. I usually go to a local authorized dealer, as I want to get the two pole endorsement and a salmon punch card, which can’t be obtained online. I don’t get the Discovery Pass, as I buy the Washington State Parks Natural Investment sticker for my windshield. For an annual fee of $80. It is interchangeable between vehicles and covers my parking and launch fees at State Parks. I also buy Colville Tribal licenses and permits. These are only available online. Log onto cct.fnw.com and go to the Licenses and Permits page. You will need to have your driver’s license and vehicle license plate numbers to complete the transaction. This week’s photo is of Park and Blue lakes.
As many of you know, I am a big fan of fishing on the Colville Reservation lakes. The Colville Tribe plant fish in Rufus Woods, Buffalo, Omak, and Twin lakes every year, and some of them are real whoppers. The tribe has already planted over 16,000 trout in Rufus Woods and will release an additional 30,000, averaging two pounds, in April and May. Twin lakes will be planted with 7,500 trout averaging 1.5 pounds in April and get 600 rainbow that average 7 pounds the same month. Twin Lakes also offers terrific fishing for largemouth bass. Buffalo Lake will receive a plant of 2,000 rainbow averaging 1.5 pounds in April and 600 trout that will weigh 7 pounds in April and May. Buffalo Lake also has very good numbers of kokanee and a crawfish season from July 1st through September 15th, and they are of exceptional size. Rufus Woods Lake produces triploid rainbow that can exceed 20 pounds and the state record from Rufus is 29.6 pounds. The state record for Lahontan cutthroat is from Omak Lake. It weighed 18.4 pounds.
The forecast for last weekend was for rain and wind but it didn’t dampen the spirits of the anglers that fished in the annual Quincy Chamber of Commerce Trout Derby. Over 100 people registered for the event that took place on Burke and Quincy lakes. Fishing at these lakes has been good since the March 1st opener and was excellent during the derby. Quincy Lake was the most productive for anglers this year. Thanks to the local Aikins Market, Raceway Technologies, Pepsi and Vantage Data Centers, $3,600 worth of big rainbow were added for the derby. There were over $5,000 worth of prizes handed out to the derby winners and through raffles. In the Youth Division, Julian Rubio won an Xbox for a 22.5 inch fish. Ruby Prunedo turned in 14 pounds of trout and won a drone. Prior to the weigh in, I had met Holly Bogart, who said she was a big fan of mine. Her fishing partner told me that on Saturday, she got her limit, and he didn’t land a single fish. Turns out she swept the Adult Division, with a 22.5 inch rainbow and over 13 pounds of trout. Derby organizers made sure that kids that participated received a rod and reel, or a tackle box. The Quincy Chamber and volunteers did a great job again this year. Anglers who like to participate in the Chamber’s annual Pike Minnow Derby should know that the event has been moved to the fall. I will keep you updated.
I mentioned earlier that I was invited to fish Billy Clapp with some friends. Dennis and Monica Beich met me at the boat launch at 7 and off we went. It was chilly with a slight breeze, and we were looking forward to having a busy day. Dennis and Monica live in Marlin, not far from Billy Clapp and have had many great days in the early spring catching rainbow. We were trolling above the island and Dennis noticed a fish rise in some calm water and steered over there. Boom! His rod bounced and soon we had a very nice fish up to the boat. The fish was about 16 inches long and was almost square. It had a deep girth and was very chunky. We got our lines out again and continued to troll a variety of shallow running Rapalas. We trolled and trolled, but never got another hit. We were all surprised. Conditions seemed perfect and we are used to catching lots of rainbow at this time of year. We’ll be back, though. The traditional good rainbow bite has to happen soon. I look forward to walleye fishing at the upper end, and there are lots of smallmouth bass in Billy Clapp, too. This week’s photo is of Dennis with his fish.
On a previous trip to Rufus Woods a couple of anglers stopped by to say hi, when I was fishing with my friends at the middle net pens. They said they were fishing at the “Greenhouse” access on the reservoir. They had caught their limits of fish like the ones we were getting, but one of the anglers next to them got a 22 pounder, fishing a jig. I wondered where they were talking about and on the way out we passed the sign for the Colville Tribal Greenhouse. The next time I was in the area I turned in to investigate. Driving past the greenhouse facility the dirt road led down to the river and there were several spots where there were steep trails to the shore. I gave this spot a try earlier this week. I didn’t catch anything but I was lucky as I ran into the angler that had caught that whopper trout. He showed me his setup, which was what we used to use when we had steelhead up here. A good ol’ slip bobber and black jig.
I love fishing Banks Lake. Not only is it one of the most scenic places to fish in Washington, but it also has terrific fishing for a variety of species. If you haven’t tried Banks you may want to plan a trip on April 12 through the 14th. That’s when the annual Reel Recreation Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge fishing derby is scheduled. This is a very family friendly derby with special emphasis on making sure the youngsters have a great time. On Friday, there’s a special “pond” set up and Pacific Seafoods loads it up with rainbow trout for the kids to catch. On Saturday participants head out to catch bass, walleye, whitefish, and trout to be entered into the derby. Fishing continues on Sunday and concludes with a weigh in. Then winners for catches made on both Saturday and Sunday are awarded their prizes. The aim of the derby is to get families involved in fishing, and the derby is a fun way to do it. To learn more about the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, just Google Real Recreation and check out their website. You can even register for the event on the site.
I recently traveled home to Leavenworth from Coulee Dam. I stopped to see if the docks were in at Northrup and found one dock in place. I have heard some people talking about good walleye fishing and that the bass were beginning to bite. I continued down Highway 17 and visited with some fly anglers who were coming off Lake Lenore. This lake has special rules that make it popular with fly fishers. Getting to Lake Lenore and other spots via Highway 17, anglers should be aware of the construction delays. During the first phase of the project, known as slope scaling, the public should expect regular closures along SR 17, from Monday through Friday every hour at the top of the hour for 45 minutes. These closures start from 8:15 a.m. and run until 5 p.m. State Route 17 will reopen every hour on the first 15 minutes of the hour to clear traffic, before closing again.
