by Dave Graybill, April 23, 2014

It was fun with families this past week. First, it was myself and my wife Eileen treating her sister to a fishing trip to Buffalo Lake, and then It was the Rock Island Free Kids Fishing Day at Rock Island. There were some real lunkers caught at Buffalo Lake, and at the Pitt Pond in Rock Island.

My wife Eileen’s sister Karen was visiting from Anaconda, Montana last fall and we took her steelhead fishing on the upper Columbia at Bridgeport. She caught her first steelhead and was thrilled. When she made a visit last week, we made sure she got to go fishing again. This time we went to Buffalo Lake, which is on the Colville Indian Reservation, about ten miles from Grand Coulee Dam. It opened to fishing on April 12th.

The lake is one of Eileen and my favorites. We have fished here on Memorial Weekend and Labor Day Weekend over the years. What we like about it is not only is the fishing for rainbow, kokanee and largemouth bass usually very good, there are few others there. We have been there on a Memorial Weekend and there were just six boats tied to the dock. The lake is close to the size of Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee. Buffalo is also loaded with crawfish. There is even a season on them that opens the first of July. A Colville Tribal license is required to fish the lake, and they are available at Reynold’s Resort. A three-day license is just $20.00.

We launched at the resort there, and as we pulled away from the dock a truck backed down the ramp and unloaded a whole bunch of fish. According to Mike Hall, who runs the resort for the Tribe, there were 2,500 rainbow scheduled to be planted in the lake. He said that as many as 500 triploids had been planted earlier in the month. When we ran around the corner to the first bay, a truck had just finished up and pulling away. The bay was full of jumping fish.

Needless to say, the fishing was good. We trolled a bright orange floating Rapala way behind the boat, and an orange Apex on one downrigger. Both of these lures caught fish. Most of the rainbow that were planted were 16 and 17 inches, weighing about a pound and a half. We also caught a carryover of 18 inches and a triploid that must have been 5 or 6 pounds. We spent the night in town at Coulee House Inn and Suites, which is a great place to stay in Coulee Dam, if you plan to fish Rufus Woods, Lake Roosevelt and Banks Lake, too. They have outside power so you can charge your bow mount electric motor overnight.

The next morning, after a terrific breakfast at Flo’s, we headed back up to the lake to fish for a couple of hours before Karen had to head back to Montana. We fished the same bay, and in spite of heavy wind, got some more nice fish. We hooked six, and landed three. One of them was a plant of 17 inches, and the other two were carryovers that measured 18 and 20 inches. We then sent Karen on her way with a load of fish. It was sure great to get back to Buffalo Lake. It had been a couple of years since we had fished there. I should mention that just a mile way is McGinnis Lake, which is full of cutthroat, and just down the hill from Buffalo is Rebecca Lake, which is a small lake, that is loaded with largemouth bass. I haven’t done well at McGinnis, but we have had a blast catching largemouth on Rebecca.

The Rock Island Kids Free Fishing Day was one of the best ever. This event has been going on for 15 years and I think the fishing was about as good as we’ve ever seen it. Everyone was catching fish, and there were many over 20 inches landed. The Wenatchee Sportsmen Association was on hand once again, with rods and reels to loan out, and even had bait for those who needed it. Volunteers from Rock Island were there early with donuts and coffee in the morning and then cooked hot dogs. Pepsi provided the soft drinks and bottled water. This year Bob Kincaid (Troller Bob) ran a derby. He weighed and measured the big fish people brought in, and Hooked on Toys gave him rods and reels to award to the kids with the three biggest fish.

Next weekend is possibly the biggest family weekend of the year. The opening of our lowland lakes can see as many 400,000 anglers turn out to go fishing. Many of them head our direction. The lakes of North Central Washington are famous for big trout and lots of them. As an indication of just how popular our lakes are, I saw RVs parked along the highway at Blue Lake last Tuesday, to save a spot on the bank for the opener. That was eleven days ahead of opening day! Interest in fishing our area lakes continues to grow. A couple of years ago the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife changed their strategy on fish plants, increasing the size anglers can expect to take in our lakes on opening weekend. Response from the public has been very positive, with even more anglers coming to our lakes than ever before. To get current information on when fish plants are scheduled and even what size fish are being put in our lakes, you can visit the WDFW web site and look under the Fishing Section. You will find both 2014 Annual Stocking Schedule and the Weekly Stocking Report.

Both Grant County and Chelan County PUDs have been busy making alterations in their fish ladders to allow passage of salmon and steelhead that are arriving to our region. Fish counts earlier in the week showed that 31 spring Chinook and 102 steelhead had passed over Wanapum Dam. For current information on what is happening at Wanapum and Rock Island dams I encourage you to visit their web sites for updates. Also, Chelan County PUD has opened two of the boat ramps above Rock Island Dam as water levels have been raised with increased flows.

I hope to visit some of our trout lakes to see how anglers are doing on opening weekend, and also check in on the Triple Fish Challenge at Banks Lake. It will be busy and I know that I am going to see a lot of happy anglers everywhere I go!

FishingMagician.com