The Fishin' Magician Report

Wednesday, Dec. 30

I made a big mistake the other day and I wanted to share it with you. Maybe you won't do the same thing. What happened was, while experiencing a very hot steelhead bite below Wells Dam, a knot slipped on one of the rods one of the anglers fishing with me was using. Well, I decided to replace the knot, which needed to done, but I did it the long way. That means I clipped everything off, put on a new knot and put the entire rig back together. This is fine, but in retrospect, it cost me at least one and maybe two fish. We did get some more steelhead but the bite did end about an hour later. You got to get the fish when it's hot, and I wasted a bunch of time retying. What I should have done is use the short cut. You can easily put a new knot on your line without starting completely over. Go to my Links Page and the Fishing Links section. Click on Stop Know and the directions on how to tie a knot on your line will appear. You can use thread, braided line or even mono to tie the knot. If you use this short cut you will save valuable fishing time.

Friday, Jan. 1

As we enter the month of January and the new year, we find many anglers shifting their focus from steelhead fishing on the upper Columbia to triploid rainbow at Rufus Woods Reservoir. Steelhead fishing remains good and improving on the Columbia, but the lure of big, and I mean really big rainbow is drawing anglers to all the access points along Rufus Woods. I got a chance to give it a try over the Holidays. My daughter Whitney and I fished with Shane Magnuson, of Upper Columbia Guide Services. We started at Bridgeport and worked out way up to the lower pens. We caught fish along the barrier above the dam, below the pump on the east side, and at Pump 1. By the time we reached Pump 3 the current had dropped to nothing and the ground to a halt. When we reached the lower pen we noticed quite a few fish rolling, but not taking our trolled lures. Shane put out some slip bobber rigs with a bead-head Wooly Bugger hanging below it and it did attract a couple of strikes. We at least got to see a fish of about 10 pounds near the boat, before it slipped the hook and swam away. Oh well, we'll get him next time.