Wahoo, we’re back on the water. I have some ambitious plans to give several lakes in our region a try. You’ll want to check my FishingMagician.com web site and my FishingMagician.com Facebook page to get my reports to learn how I do.

As you can well imagine I have a long list of lakes that I want to fish this time of year. I provided a good list of them in my spring issue of my free E-Letter. There should be very good walleye fishing available on our big reservoirs. The kokanee fishing on Lake Chelan is another fishery that is high on my list of what I want to get to right away. I also want to get to Billy Clapp Lake. The trout fishing should be excellent, and I want to see if the small walleye we were catching last year have grown up to keeper size.

My plan for the week starts at Moses Lake. My brother Rick and I have fished Moses Lake in the spring for many years. It is the most shallow of the three very popular walleye waters in the region, which also include Banks Lake and Potholes Reservoir. Moses Lake typically warms up first, and the action is often very good by May.

The strategy is to start in one of the shallow areas of the lake in the north end. We will troll a combination of spinners, Slow Death Hook rigs and crank baits. I didn’t fish Moses Lake last year, don’t know why, I guess I was off doing other things. I am very eager to get back to this lake. It not only has an abundant supply of walleye; the smallmouth and largemouth bass fishing is terrific. I often take my bass gear along when I fish Moses Lake. If the walleye bite falls off I can spend some time catching bass. Makes for a great day.

Next on my list is Lake Chelan. The kokanee fishing was good when everything shut down, and it should be going great guns now. The big schools of kokanee should have moved down in the lower end of Chelan by now. I was fishing off Mitchell Creek and Green’s Landing when we got barred from fishing. I may try the Yacht Club, but fish could be all the way down to Rocky Point by now. I will be running two downriggers and two rods out the back with lead balls for weight. My brother in law, Tom Verschueren, and I were getting fish on lead balls earlier this spring. All my rods will have the new Kokabow Copper Series blades and different Kokabow spinners on behind them. I will favor the orange colors, as usual, and will try both plain white shoe peg corn and some stained pink. I also add Graybill’s Guide Formula scent to the corn.

I have been on Billy Clapp Lake a couple of times already this year. The trout fishing was great. The fish were a bit smaller than last year, but my buddies and I still got fish that were pushing 3 pounds or more. I may forego the trout fishing on my first trip to Billy Clapp and target walleye instead. Last summer my buddy James Lebow and I got into amazing numbers of walleye, but they were pretty small. Our hope is that they have grown up to keep size this season. The area we found the walleye in last year was awfully snaggy and we lost a few bottom bouncers at first. We got better at keeping them off the bottom, but snags are an issue on Billy Clapp. I am going to see if we can’t jig for walleye in the same area. It’s deep, but we shouldn’t spend as much time re-rigging if we try jigs.

I probably spend more time on Banks Lake fishing for walleye than any other lake. There is so much variety of water to fish on this big reservoir that you can usually find fish willing to bite any time of the year. Barker Flats is always a good place to look for walleye, and because it is shallow, it warms up faster than other areas of the lake. Devils Punchbowl is another good early season place to look for fish. Trolling along the weed beds can be frustrating, as you will be pulling weeds off your hooks quite often, but that’s where the walleye will be, feeding on small perch that hide in these beds. The question is, has the water warmed up enough for the walleye to have spawned? The spawn can stall the walleye bite for ten days to two weeks. The hope is that they have already spawned by now and the fish will be hungry. The fishing can be fantastic right after the spawn.

I have great luck pulling Dutch Fork spinners, particularly the Blue Tiger Turtle Shell blade. Another favorite of mine is the Butterfly blade design from Dutch Fork. They came up with this radical design of walleye spinner blade a few years ago, and it took the walleye fishing scene by storm. You can put them ahead of a worm harness or a Slow Death Hook rig.

The walleye bite should also be going on Potholes Reservoir. Shelby Ross and I got ten nice fish in Lind Coulee before the shutdown, and it’s a good place to start in the spring. The fish may have moved down into the main lake, and Perch Point is a good place to find them. The photo in this week’s column is of Shelby with the stringer of walleye we landed earlier this year.

Fish Lake near Lake Wenatchee is a favorite of mine in the spring, too. The rainbow are fat and healthy in the spring. I love trolling flies at the top end of the lake for these trout. Last year I had some good days fishing for largemouth bass on Fish Lake. You could cast a purple worm or a copper flaked watermelon Senko along the lily pads and the docks, and you should get some largemouth. Some of the bass have been 3-pounders.

These aren’t all the lakes I want to hit now that we can get back out on the water, but they are a start. I want to remind everyone to practice social distancing and be on your best behavior at the launches and along the shorelines. If we demonstrate an effort to comply to the rules, we will continue to be healthy and able to fish.

I hope to see you out there!