The Fishing Magician
Friday, Feb. 18
Things are looking up for anglers fishing for steelhead on the Wenatchee River. Although the water level is still pretty high for this time of year, there are some anglers catching some fish. I ran into Jeff Stroup, who keeps tabs on the numbers of hatchery fish caught and wild fish released for the Department of Fish and Wildlife the other day, and he said that there are finally some people out on the Wenatchee and some of them are doing alright. One boat, that floated the lower river wound up with four keeps at the end of the day, and Jeff Stroup and his father Bob hooked five and landed four, including one keep on a recent outing. I also caught up with Shane Magnuson by phone over last weekend. When he answered he was on the river. He had picked up one steelhead drift fishing, and his friend Amanda had landed one on a bobber. The Wenatchee is running at about twice the cubic feet per second than is typical for this time of year. Good news for anglers that have been fishing the mouth of the Entiat. The water temperature has warmed significantly, so the steelhead fishing should improve there now.
Monday, Feb. 21
It's less than two weeks away from the big Trout Derby at Burke and Quincy lakes in the Quincy Wildlife Area. If you haven't heard, there are going to be three trout planted in these two lakes that are worth a total of $5,000.00 to the anglers that catch them. They will be tagged and released just prior to Saturday, March 5th the date of the derby. Quincy Valley Tourism has more fun planned for that day, and if you want to learn all about it log onto quincyvalleytourism.org. You can also find a link to the Quincy page on the Home Page of my web site at fishingmagician.com. If these lakes are more than 50 percent covered with ice on March 5th, the derby will be postponed until April 2nd. They want as many anglers as possible to be able to get a shot at these big-money rainbow. Another early March date to mark down is Friday, March 4th, which is when the annual Ducks Unlimited banquet will be held. It will be at Apple Annie's in Cashmere. This is always a great event and you should be able to get tickets at the sporting goods stores in the Wenatchee area.
Wednesday, Feb. 23
The long run up to the net pens on Rufus Woods Reservoir should be a little easier to take with the warmer weather we're having. I am hearing that the trip can be worth it, too. There are decent catches of triploids coming from the area just below the lower pens and some fish are being taken at the upper pens, too. Most of the fish are the 2- to 3-pounders that the Colville Tribe has been planting, but there are some bigger fish being taken as well. The good fishing for big kokanee and rainbow trout continues at Lake Roosevelt, with some good catches of rainbow coming from the shore near the Keller Ferry. There are some walleye being taken on the Spokane River. I talked to Gordon Steinmetz the other day, and a buddy of his stopped by to have him take a photo of one of his fish. It turned out to be about 9 pounds. He caught the fish just above the first islands on the way up the Spokane River. I am keeping an eye on some of our local lakes for early trout fishing. Roses Lake can be excellent when the ice comes off, and it probably won't be long before anglers will be able to give this a try.