The hot weather brought more than the usual number of boats out on the water. Last Friday was a good day for boating, with little or no wind in the forecast. I got the new boat out on the water for the first time. I also got another video done, in spite of the wind that can make shooting difficult. We have some great days ahead of us.

Every year I try to have my wife Eileen go with me the first time I put the new boat from Bob Feil Boats and Motors in the water. We usually take it to Lake Chelan, and split time between fishing for kokanee and breaking in the new engines. She wants to be sure that everything is in ship shape before I take anyone else. A couple of years ago I launched the boat at the State Park. She was holding the boat at the dock, and I stopped at the top of the ramp to see if she was doing okay, and when I looked back, both the bilge pumps were spraying water! I forgot to put the plug in. Now this is something that she asked me about every time I hook up the boat. The folks a Bob Feil Boats and Motors have done an excellent job rigging the boat with a bow mount Minn Kota and electronics. I just had to put some rod holders where I want them and load what I keep in the boat, like life jackets, downrigger releases, tools, and such. Now I just have to remember to put in the plug.

I picked a good day for the maiden voyage of the new Smoker Craft on Lake Chelan with my wife Eileen. It was very warm and sunny and dead calm. The conditions were great for fishing, and the goal for the day was to get the engines broken in. Mercury recommends that you run the main engine at varying speeds, up to 4,500 rpms for the first two hours. Then you can run it up to full speed—but not for more than five minutes, for the next eight hours. We did do a little fishing. When we left the launch at the State Park and ran down the lake, we saw a large number of boats trolling off Mill Bay. We joined them briefly and landed a nice kokanee. We left there and buzzed around for a while, following the break in instructions. We took the boat to an area below Rocky Point where I like to fish and hooked several more kokanee. To finish the break in procedure I drove the boat up above the Yacht Club and then back down to the State Park. The kicker started very easily, too, and the boat drives like a dream! It’s going to be a great season.

I had a very productive day last Wednesday, although with some challenges. I wanted to shoot video of some of the quality lakes in Grant County. By that I mean those that have special regulations that restrict anglers to the use of single barbless hooks and no bait. They also have limits of one fish per day or even just catch and release. With these regulations in place the lakes have abundant populations of bigger trout. I started at Rocky Ford Creek. The challenge was the wind. I tried to find some shelter, but it isn’t easy to shoot video in windy conditions. I spent quite a bit of time here, hiking down the stream to show good places to fish. My next stop was at Lake Lenore, which is known to produce Lahontan cutthroat to 30 inches and has been fishing very well the past couple of seasons. I ended the day at Dry Falls Lake. I spoke with someone with the State Park when I arrived, and she said anglers were getting trout of 18 to 20 inches fishing with chironomids below indicators. This is a popular fly fishing lake, and I even saw a license plate from California in the parking area. This week’s photo is of Dry Falls from above the lake.

I have posted a couple of videos you may enjoy recently. One is of “the Walleye Fishing Hot Spots on Moses Lake”. With my friends Brian Nielson and James Lebow, we did tour of Moses Lake, stopping at some of our favorite walleye fishing spots and I described them in detail. If you ever plan to fish for walleye on Moses Lake it will give you some great places to start. The “Quality Lakes in Grant County” has also been posted. You can search the Dave Graybill YouTube channel to find these and many other videos I have done over the years.

I was thinking back to when we fished for smallmouth bass at Crescent Bar last year. It didn’t take long to search my photos and find what I was looking for. Tom Verschuren and I are making trips to this area every year now, and last year we got some dandy smallmouth on May 6th. We went back on May 10th and had another good day. We fish below the cliffs in the channel and start about where the swimming area is on the beach. I have tried all kinds of stuff that works great for me on Banks Lake, like Senkos and lizards, but for some reason they don’t work here. We have our best success trolling crank baits behind the boat. We have some Rapalas, like the Fire Tiger pattern that works really well, and a Flicker Shad Crawdad gets fish, too. We run four rods out the back and try different patterns until we find what the smallmouth want. Even on windy days, with a lot of current off the Columbia, fishing along the cliffs is protected. There is a great free launch here on both sides of the channel by the bridge. I want to get down there as soon as I can!

There are so many places I like to fish this time of year it’s hard to decide where to go first. Wherever I go I will be sure to let you know how I do!