The Fishin' Magician: On Fish Lake with Terry Rudnick

My friend Terry Rudnick, author of Washington Fishing, was over for a visit and staying in Plain. This gave me the opportunity to do two things. One was to tape an interview with him on the new edition of the book, which will be out in March, and to do some ice fishing.

I picked up Terry and his friend Jeff, got a license at Midway Grocery near Fish Lake and headed out. There was a thin layer of ice and water on top of the ice that made getting out on the main lake sloppy, but there was at least 5 inches of good ice under the muck. People have been fishing here for about two weeks and catches have varied. Some days the perch and trout are on the bite and limits can be taken. On other days it can be slow. We were there on a slow day.

We did get enough perch for a meal and one rainbow, too. I had brought along a variety of bait, including meal worms, wax worms, nightcrawlers and Power Bait. We caught fish on all of these baits. I had hoped for fast action for Terry and Jeff, but you know how that goes. When you really want the fish to bite the snub you!