The Fishin' Magician: With Stuart Hurd at Rufus Woods

I got up to Rufus Woods Reservoir and fished with Stuart Hurd and a few of his buddies. Of course I picked the coldest day yet, but we had a great time in spite of the freezing weather. We put in above the dam at the Corps of Engineers launch and trolled up lake. We found plenty of fish along the west shore and even out in the middle and never got to the State Park.

There were definite lulls in the action, but then we would have very good flurries of action. Hurd was pulling a variety of lures, which included flies, Sqidders and Kokanee Pros. We caught and released at least 25 fish, and kept some to take home. The largest fish were 4 to 5 pounds and we had fish a small as a pound. When the sun came out for about an hour we had some very hot fishing. Most of the rods were fished pretty close to the surface, behind small dodgers and two were attached to downriggers.

We never got any hits on the downrigger rods any deeper than 15 feet. Fishing is good at Rufus Woods, even down at the bottom end of the reservoir.