The Fishin' Magician - Dave Graybill

Wed, October 10

My wife Eileen's birthday wish was to run up to Fish Lake, near Lake Wentchee, and spend the afternoon fly fishing for rainbow. This is one of our favorite fall activities. The fall foliage is in bloom and the lake is full of hungry rainbow.

After launching at the Cove Resort and a very short run out onto the main lake, I put out two rods.

One had a "triploid" fly on it. It was a large black leech with a lot of blue flashabou in the pattern, and a Wiggle Fin Action Disk on the head of the fly.

The other was a tried and true bead-head Bugger I have used here before with great success.

Fishing started off slow, so I changed the bead-head Bugger to a small sculpin pattern, with a bullet head with a red eye. That did the trick.

We immediately began getting strikes on the new fly. This fly was on a 3-weight rod with a sink tip line. The other was on a five-weight rod with an intermediate sinking line.

Soon both rods were going off regularly.

We lost count of how many fish we caught and released, and found good numbers of 10- to 12-inch rainbow at the bottom and top ends of the lake.

Friday, October 12

The buzz that I am hearing is that there will be a steelhead season announced next week.

I don't know the details, but it has everyone champing at the bit to get out on the water. I am hoping that the fronts that are going to move through out area will give us some rain.

All our rivers could really use it. There are plenty of fish around, and I already have plans to fish the main stem Columbia River in a couple of my favorite spots.

It looks like the timing should be perfect for the free seminar at Town Ford. It's set for Wednesday, October 17th, beginning at 6 p.m.

Once again I have talked Shane Magnuson into leaving Vernita that evening and coming up and providing another great seminar.

He really does a great job giving everyone step by step instructions on how to rig for bobber and jig fishing on the Columbia and other rivers in our region. If you haven't been to one of his seminars on fishing our area be sure to be at this one.

If you want to catch more steelhead this season he will show you how. Town Ford is in East Wenatchee, across from Costco.

Monday, October 15

I know everyone is thinking about getting ready for steelhead fishing, and so am I.

I did want to take advantage of one of the sunny days last week and make another trip up to Fish Lake. My buddy Tom Bartlett and I met at the Cove at 2 and headed out.

There was a brisk breeze blowing, but it was still a warm and sunny fall day.

We began trolling flies at the bottom end of the lake, and got off to a slow start.

However, as we approached the west shore of the lake we found some hungry fish. We started landing small rainbow and then I noticed my five-weight rod sort of dragging.

We had just released a double and thought I had picked some weeds, which seemed strange.

As I got the line back on my reel it got heavier and heavier. Sure enough, there was a fish on it and a big one. It turned out to be about a four-pound triploid! Later in the evening we went back to the same spot and this time my three-weight rod folded over.

It took me quit a while to get this one in on the small rod, as it was a five- or six-pound triploid! I am ready for steelhead season, but Fish Lake is a great place to fill the gap.