Weekly Fishing Magician report - Dave Graybill

Wednesday, October 31st

My wife Eileen and I took our last trip in my Jetcraft Discovery 1925 last week.

A good friend of mine has decided to buy it, and we wanted one more day to enjoy this great boat. It's steelhead season and she loves to fish at Bridgeport, so off we went.

We started off casting bobbers and jigs at the hole near the outflow of the Colville Tribal Hatchery.

The first fish I got was a small king, but after a few more casts I got a nice hatchery steelhead for the cooler. We fished the shoreline below here and then ran up to the bridge.

This hole can be difficult as there is often quite a bit of current and there are some very large boulders under the surface that are real jig grabbers.

I was about to give up on it, but had noticed some fish rolling in a seam at the very bottom end. I thought that they might be kings, but there was at least one steelhead there.

It grabbed my jig and gave me a great battle.

It was a big wild fish that I released.

We got a couple more kings and a triploid, and it was a great goodbye trip. My new Kingfisher is on its way from the factory in Vernon, B.C.

I'll tell you all about it when it gets here.

Friday, November 2nd

We wanted some rain over here to get some water in our rivers.

It would help steelheaders out in many ways. It would move fish further up into the rivers and make floating easier.

Enough already!

There has been so much rain that all of our tributaries are high and out of shape. That doesn't mean that steelhead anglers have hung it up.

There are still lots of places they can find fish on the main stem Columbia. The shoreline above Rocky Reach on both sides can be good, as well as the PUD point.

The bar below Wells Dam is a good spot, as is the riprap above the dam. Anglers are still catching good numbers of fish off the docks at Pateros, too. I want to remind everyone that the Fishing and Cooking TV Shows are now available through my web site and there are some good shows to see on steelhead fishing and preparing your catch.

If you want to learn more about bobber and jig fishing there is a good instructional article in my latest e-letter and you can sign up for free by visiting my web site at FishingMagician.com.

Monday, November 5th

The North Central Washington Chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) will have their next meeting on Wednesday, November 7, beginning at 6:30. At this special meeting the chapter will be awarding plaques and prizes for their Big Fish, Most Fish and Most Weight contest.

Raffle tickets will be given to those that attend. The guest speaker at the meeting will be Jerrod Riggan of Big River Steelhead Guide service.

This is the group that brought you the highly successful salmon derby this summer.

The meeting will be held at the Wenatchee Eagles Hall, located at 1208 North Wenatchee Avenue.

For more information on the meeting or how to join the chapter, contact Bobby Loomis at Macks Lure Company at bloomis@mackslure.com.

I want to remind anglers that the Similkameen River has been added to the list of rivers open to fishing for steelhead.

This small river in northern Okanogan County is famous for producing good numbers of surprisingly large fish.

I floated this one years ago with Craig Tomlinson, who likes to pull plugs, and caught a spectacular fish. Most of the rivers are still running high, but should be in fishing shape very soon.

I'll be on the main stem Columbia the next couple of days.

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday to Me!