I have had some great fishing trips lately but haven’t come home with anything in the cooler. I kind of feel like a baseball batter that is going through a slump. Still, I am always optimistic when I head out for a day of fishing. I think that it will be the day that things will turn around and I will get a bunch of fish!

I have been trying to get up to Rufus Woods Reservoir to fish the net pens for quite a while. Finally, last Tuesday I was able to take one of my fishing buddies, Keith Hiatt, up there. Keith has been with me to fish from shore at the middle pens and we had a great day. Four of us were limited and had some 5 or 6 pound triploids in our catch. We started at the corner of the middle pens and Keith pitched a jig while I fished out the back of the boat with rods baited with Power Bait or a marshmallow and shrimp combo. Keith missed a hit on the jig, and I didn’t get a bite on the bait rods. We then ran up to the upper pens and after not getting any bites on our bait rods tried casting jigs and Rapala Jigging Raps, thinking we may get a Walleye along the shore below the pens. I even took Keith to a spot upriver from there and tried to get some Trout on a bobber and jig. One angler on the shore said the fishing had been good right up until this last week.

Ever since I lost a big Steelhead my wife Eileen wanted to go back to Pateros to try to get another one. So, last Friday we went to give it another try. We didn’t get to the hole that had produced that first fish until about noon, and it was clear after a few casts that no one was home. From there I drove the Smoker Craft up the Columbia to a place where Shane Magnuson and I had fished several times, years ago, that had produced fish. Eileen’s bobber bounced once, but she didn’t hook up. We then went back to Pateros, passing several anglers casting from the docks, and one boat that indicated they had landed a fish earlier that day. Removing the bait from our jigs, we ran up above the bridge. We found Randy Cole, who told us he was having a ball catching Steelhead here this season. He said he was having his best year ever. He held up a nice fish to prove his point. We didn’t share this good luck but had another fun day. We haven’t given up Steelhead fishing in the area around Pateros. We will be going back there with high hopes of landing a fish. This week’s photo is of Randy with his fish.

My wife suggested that we celebrate my birthday, November 5th, by going Steelhead fishing. I thought it was a great idea, and we headed up to Pateros. We were both surprised that the day turned out to be sunny and warm, hardly a typical Steelhead fishing day. We made a drift in the area known as Coyote Rocks and didn’t touch any fish. I was about to head up to the top of the drift for another try, when she suggested we run across the river. That sounded good to me. I have taken a lot of Steelhead from this point back in the day. I set the drift with my bow mount and as I slid down the river I made a cast to the slot just off the rocky bank. My bobber went down, and I set the hook and saw the flash of a Steelhead below the surface. Instead of running downstream the fish ran out in front of the boat and jumped high in the air. Then, ripping line off my reel, ran straight up ahead of me. Then—my line broke. My heart sank, but the experience reminded me why Steelhead fishing is so special.

When I lost a Steelhead due to a broken line, it got me thinking about the process of finding just the right line to use for bobber and jig fishing. Of course, my brother Rick and I started with just plain monofilament, but it sank and didn’t mend worth a darn. Then we started using Power Pro. It worked much better and in the Hi Vis yellow color was easy to see. It would lose its buoyancy after a while, though. Then Stren came out with Microfuse. This line floated, didn’t get waterlogged and the Glacier Blue color made it visible in the flat light of winter. Yea! We immediately filled all our reels with this stuff and were happy about it. Then Stren stopped making the line. It was originally intended for use with bait casting reels, not spinning reels and the bait caster guys didn’t like it. We scrambled to buy as much as we could, and I still have some partial spools I have hoarded. The next best thing that works well is Berkley Nanofil. This stuff casts great, floats and mends well.

If you like fishing for rainbow Trout, you may want to consider a trip to Keller Ferry on Lake Roosevelt. Every year there are as many as 700,000 triploid rainbow Trout released into the big reservoir, so not only are Trout abundant in the lake, but they are also of exceptional quality. Keller Ferry is one of my favorite places to fish for Trout in the winter, either from the shore or from a boat. There is a great federal park just down lake from the marina, with several good accesses to the shore, and I have had some great days fishing here. The Rainbow average at least 16 inches, and Trout to well over 20 inches are common. I cast a hook baited with either Power Bait or a shrimp and marshmallow combo to get them. I also like to troll near the shore below the marina to catch Trout. I have had good success with the orange Rapalas of various sizes and colors and Flicker Shad plugs as well. The water is down drastically in the winter, but the boat launch is usable even at the reservoir’s lowest levels. This is a great way to spend a winter day.