Weekly Fishin' Magician Report with Dave Graybill

Monday, April 15

I can remember fishing Wapato Lake, near Lake Chelan, when I was just big enough to hold and rod, and catching rainbow to 20 inches.

It is good to know that is still possible.

The lake is primarily sustained on fingerling plants and their numbers were boosted by ten percent for this season.

There should be good numbers of 14- to 15-inch rainbow caught this year and a fair number of 20-inch carryovers.

Wapato is a deep lake and I have always been impressed with the table quality of the trout here.

To make the opening weekend even better the lake will receive a bonus plant of 4,000 large catchables and 500 "jumbo" triploids.

Fishing at Wapato should be great. Known primarily as a trout water the lake also offers very good fishing for largemouth bass and perch.

Last spring 30,000 fingerling crappie were introduced the lake. The plant was scattered and put in areas where there was a lot of cover for the small fish, but largemouth of 4 and 5 pounds were seen chasing them.

It would be great to have a good crappie fishery here. We need more of those in our region.

Wednesday, April 17

This will be a busy weekend in Rock Island.

It's the annual free kids fishing day on Saturday, April 20th, and fishing families by the hundreds will be showing up to enjoy some great trout fishing and free hot dogs.

This event is going on 15 years and thanks to the Wenatchee Sportsmen's Association and Pepsi gets bigger and better every year.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife always makes sure that the Pitt Pond is loaded with planted rainbow, and even adds some bigger fish to spice the action.

Volunteers from the City of Rock Island, headed up by Ray Pearson, set up a cook shack and offer donuts and coffee in the morning and then hot dogs, chips and Pepsi products at lunch time.

The event is scheduled from 9 till noon, but many show up earlier and stay later to take advantage of the good fishing. The Pitt Pond is juvenile-only water, meaning only kids less than 15 years of age are allowed to fish here.

Parents can help out, but the intent is that youngsters have a lake all their own for fishing.

Bring your own fishing gear for this one, or you can borrow a rod and reel from the folks from the Wenatchee Sportsmen's Association.

Friday, April 19

I just got back from a week in Belize, fishing for bonefish, permit and tarpon.

My wife Eileen and took a group of eight along with us, and we all had a ball.

We fished for four days with guides from Go Fish Belize and everyone caught bonefish. Some of us caught permit, and tarpon eluded us on this trip.

One day the gals went snorkeling and then had a shore lunch prepared by one of the people from Go Fish Belize.

This was a nice break from the fishing and the sun for them and they thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the couples liked Ambergris Caye so much that they spent a day looking for a place to take their family and stay for a few weeks.

It's a great place to go whether you fish or not, but it's my favorite destination for fishing flats.

I had never caught a permit on my previous trips and that was a personal goal this time. One day Richard Robinson and I hooked twelve and landed eleven! I doubt that I will ever do this again. It was terrific.

My plan is to take a group to Costa Rica in December. Now I am headed to Chelan and then to Rufus Woods now that I am home.

Monday, April 22

One of the first things I wanted to do when I got back from my trip to Belize was to get back to Lake Chelan and catch some more of those big kokanee. I had visions of filling my freezer with prime fillets.

Well, I fished Chelan last Thursday, and things didn't quite go as planned.

The weather was fine, and there was a big fleet of boats in the lower basin, all trolling for kokanee.

Where the kokanee were I don't know. We tried our favorite fishing areas and spotted a few small schools, but couldn't get the fish to bite. We tried some areas that I hadn't fished yet this year, and still couldn't find any fish.

We tried different depths, different lures, speeds and other tricks without any success.

It seemed like a perfect day to be on Chelan for kokanee but it wasn't. We only managed to get two bites and land one fish all day.

I think anglers that got on the water at first light had better success, but we only saw on kokanee landed the whole time we were fishing. I haven't given up, though. I know I'll do better next time.

Wednesday, April 24

I reported earlier that I had a very tough day fishing for kokanee on Lake Chelan. My group fished hard for many hours and only came up with one fish for our efforts.

Well, I wasn't about to give up and went back to Chelan last Sunday to try again.

My brother Rick and I had much better luck. We found fish out in the middle near the blue roofs and although we had a slow start, ended up with a good catch.

When the wind blew us off the lake, at about mid day, we had 10 nice kokanee in the cooler.

Once again we found most of the fish hanging between 70 and 90 feet and pink or purple hoochies trolled behind small dodgers did the job.

The size of the kokanee is holding up, with most of our catch ranging in size from 16 to 17 inches. The bite was much better on Sunday for the other boats on the lake, too.

The kokanee action should hold up through May and perhaps well into June. Don't forget you new fishing license before heading out to your favorite lake this weekend. Also, send in your steelhead and salmon punch cards from last season. They are due back to the Department by the end of the month.