Weekly Fishin' Magician Report with Dave Graybill

January 27

We may not be getting any snow here in Central Washington, but ice fishing is still going strong on some of our areas waters.

One place that surprised me earlier was the number of people on the ice on Lind Coulee near Potholes Reservoir. This is the first time I have ever seen anyone fishing here, and it continues to be a great place to go to catch good numbers of quality perch through the ice.

One of my readers gave me a great report from Lind Coulee recently. He said that his group caught over 50 perch with most of them 8 to 12 inches. The biggest of the day, at least 14 inches, popped out of the hole, came off the hook, bounced once on the ice and went right back down the hole and swam away.

Ice fishing here and trolling for rainbow on Rufus Woods are the big deal over here right now. I saw no one fishing for steelhead from Wells Dam all the way up to Bridgeport.

I had someone ask me when the Wenatchee might reopen for steelhead fishing, but other than that there isn't much interest in steelhead this winter.

January 29

I ran up to Fish Lake to do an ice check on Saturday and was glad to see officer Chris Erhardt there.

He said people had been fishing here without pause since late December, but there had been times that he certainly would not have recommended it.

There was a period where there was four inches of slush on top of the ice and he thought it was not safe to be on it. Even now there is open water at the top end of the lake.

There were several groups of anglers out on the ice when I was there. Our temperatures are cold enough at night to maintain ice, but not really create a thicker layer.

I always tell people to check the thickness before going out on it, and Erhardt told me that some anglers are drilling holes next to the dock and standing on it to fish.

When I got home I saw a message on my Facebook Page from Nadine West saying that someone had fallen through the ice there recently. Remember, there should be at least four inches of good ice for ice fishing.

Always be careful. Just because people are out there doesn't mean you should be there, too.

January 31

I have been trying to find the forecasts for salmon returns to the Columbia River for the coming year. They should be out soon for all species.

I have received the projections for spring salmon, though, and it is good news for us here in Central Washington. It is estimated that 227,000 spring salmon will be returning to rivers above Bonneville Dam. This compares with just 123,000 last year.

As you recall, spring salmon fishing was very poor last year in our region. The popular Icicle River spring salmon fishery was very disappointing.

Sport angling catches were very low, and I didn't even fish the river last season.

As many of you know, early estimates, particularly for spring salmon, have been notoriously wrong in the past.

They consistently gave high estimates and the commercial fisheries took their quotas against those numbers-only to have the numbers adjusted to a lower estimate after they were done.

Keep your fingers crossed. We see the Wenatchee open to springer fishing this year.