I had a couple of days of great fishing last week, getting a few fillets of triploid rainbow trout. I want to take advantage of the great fall weather and a good walleye bite on Potholes Reservoir in the coming week.

I have wanted to get up to Rufus Woods Reservoir and fish near the net pens for some time. I had heard some good reports about the fishing for triploid rainbow trout up there and was eager to try it for myself. Last Tuesday my fishing friends James Lebow and Michael Erickson and I launched my boat at the Colville Net Pens site and ran up the shore to an area that I have fished many times.

We wanted to try trolling crank baits here and fish without bait. We trolled a long path up above the net pens, across the bank up there and then across the lower edge of the Nespelem Bar. We did get one fish doing this but decided to switch to our tried and true method of fishing Power Bait off the bottom.
We started right below the upper pen and got a couple, then ran down and tried it below the middle pens. Getting no bites here we ran back to the upper pen. The current was so absent that we didn’t even need to put the boat in Stop Lock on the bow mount. The boat wouldn’t drift at all. We got a couple more fish and called it a day. We had four nice triploids weighing from about 3 ½ to 6 pounds in the cooler. I will be making more trips to the net pens soon. There is no better place to pack the freezer with these prized fish than upper Rufus Woods. This week’s photo is of Michael with his big fish.

Sometimes you just want to get out on the water and enjoy these warm fall days. All my wife wanted to do on her birthday last week was to take the boat up to Bridgeport. Over the years we have enjoyed many fall days fishing in this area for steelhead. She has fished with me all over Eastern Washington and even in Mexico and Belize, but bobber and jig fishing for steelhead remains her favorite. She got darn good at it, too. She had landed more than a couple steelhead in a day at Bridgeport.

Although steelhead fishing is still closed, I remembered fishing up there with our bobbers and jigs and hooking many kings this time of year. So, off we went and even if we didn’t get any bites from salmon, she landed two big pike minnows, and was thrilled to see her bobber go down and hook a fish, didn’t matter if it was just a lowly pike minnow.

We pulled the boat and launched again above Chief Joseph Dam to see if we could get a triploid on our bobber gear. I was surprised to see just one other boat at the launch. Fishing for triploids can be quite good here this time of year. We didn’t have any luck, but we sure had fun just being out on the water on an 80-plus degree day in the fall. Looks like we have a few more to come. This would be a good time of year to fish from shore at Brandts Landing, too.

I was walking into Dan’s Market in Leavenworth the other day and a poster that was pinned to the community bulletin board caught my attention. It was for a free trout derby that was coming up on Sunday, October 16th at Mountain Springs Lodge. That sounded interesting to me, so I called them to learn more about it. Turns out that the lodge has three ponds on their property, which is just outside of the town of Plain. They keep these ponds stocked with rainbow trout each year. They are primarily used by an organization called Family Lines, a fly fishing academy. The free trout derby is being offered to the public as a way to empty the ponds of fish prior to winter. Everyone is invited to come up and fish the ponds and keep as many fish as they want. This is a catch and keep event. There is no charge to participate, but anglers are encouraged to donate funds to Family Lines. To learn more about the programs offered by Family Lines, visit their website at www.familylinesflyfishing.com. The derby is scheduled to take place from 8 a.m. until noon. For more information you can contact Mountain Springs Lodge at 509-763-2713. Be sure to bring a cooler and ice to take care of the fish you catch to take home. This should be fun for the whole family!

The great fishing for fall Chinook will end on Saturday for many anglers looking to land big kings on the Hanford Reach. The upper section of the Hanford Reach, Hanford townsite powerline crossing to Priest Rapids Dam will close on October 16 (October 15 is the last day to fish the upstream area). I have been seeing photos of some whopper kings taken from that area this year. More than the typical number of four- and five year-old fish expected to return to the Reach this year apparently showed up.

The lower section of the Reach is scheduled to remain open through December 31 this year to provide anglers some additional days to target on the late run coho expected to return to Ringold Springs Hatchery.

The lower section of the Hanford Reach (Interstate 182 bridge upstream to the old Hanford townsite powerlines) opened for Ringold Springs Hatchery origin steelhead on October 1. Steelhead must be a minimum of 20 inches in length and must be adipose clipped and ventral fin clipped to be harvested in this area of the Columbia River. Steelhead are trickling into the hatchery in relatively low numbers. Fishing for steelhead and coho doesn’t typically improve until November. Ringold Springs origin coho are late run returning in late October through December.

I hope to make a couple of trips to Potholes Reservoir soon. I had a great day a week or so ago and I hear that the bite is holding up. It has been awhile since I have had some good fall fishing on Potholes, and I want to stock up on walleye fillets for the winter!