Dave Graybill: The Fishin' Magician

This Sunday is a big day for trout anglers. It's the March 1st opener of many lakes in the Quincy Wildlife Area, and several others in the region.

Monday, February 23

This Sunday is a big day for trout anglers. It's the March 1st opener of many lakes in the Quincy Wildlife Area, and several others in the region. Martha Lake, which is just east of George, is one of them and the Caliche lakes just to the west of George are also included. Popular with fly fishers, Lenice and Nunnally lakes, near Beverly open at the same time. Burke and Quincy lakes attract the biggest crowds and are known for producing very good catches of 10- to 12-inch rainbow every year. Martha Lake always surprises me. It is a small, shallow and narrow pond, but treats anglers to excellent fishing and some very large fish every year on the opening day. Just one of the Caliche lakes gets all the attention and often produces limit catches of rainbow in the 10- to 12-inch class. I will be eager to see how the fly fishing lakes of Lenice and Nunnally produce this year. They didn't get that much attention last season and could be very good this year. There are some bigger rainbow and some brown and tiger trout in Lenice and Nunnally as well. Another lake that is popular with fly anglers that opens on March 1 is Dusty Lake, in the Quincy Wildlife Area. It is reached by trail and is known for large rainbow, brown and tiger trout.

Wednesday, February 25

I am busy working ahead and getting prepared to spend the weekend at the Tri-Cities Great Outdoor Expo at the TRAC in Pasco. I will be there with the crew from Bob Feil Boats and Motors this year. Last year I was there by myself and really had fun talking to people from Tri-Cities about the fishing opportunities in our area. I will be doing two seminars over the weekend. One will be on Saturday on how to rig for bobber and jig fishing for steelhead and another one on Sunday about walleye fishing on Potholes Reservoir. There is a big gun show in one half of the TRAC and the Expo on the other. A big attraction at this year's show is the Walk on the Wild Side exhibit that features rescued lions, tigers, other exotic cats and even reptiles. I can't wait to see this. If you get to the show stop by the Bob Feil booth and say hello. Remember, the next weekend is the 5th annual Tagged Trout Derby at Burke Lake near Quincy. Visit the web site at quincyvalleytourism.org to learn all about it.

Friday, February 27

If I was going to be in the area and not at the Outdoor Expo in Tri-Cities I would be headed for Banks Lake to do some walleye fishing. I spent the day there on Monday and had a great time. I was with Austin Moser, Austin's Northwest Adventures, his friend Nate Stull and my friend Mike McKee. We ran from the Northrup launch over to Barker Flats and started trolling in about 35 feet of water. McKee got a nice walleye just over 20 inches right off the bat. He was trolling a gold and black squidder baited with a night crawler and this worked for him all day long. We tried different rigs throughout the day and found the Slow Death hooks with a green Smile Blade and crawler very attractive to the fish. We were very busy, landing close to 30 walleye, but keepers were hard to find. It seemed every fish we caught was 15 1/2 or 15 3/4 inches. We did wind up with three legal fish by the end of the day. A big surprise right at the end was Stull landing a five-pound burbot. The walleye are biting at Banks and with some looking you may find a school of keeper sized fish.

Monday, March 2

Trout fishing has opened on several lakes in the Quincy Wildlife Area, but the big crowds of anglers will be arriving this weekend. Most of them will be headed for Burke Lake to join the fun of the Fifth Annual Tagged Trout Derby put on by the Quincy Valley Tourism Association that will be held on Saturday, March 7. One of the tagged trout released into Burke will be worth $2,000.00, and another worth $1,000.00 to the lucky angler that catches them. There are other tagged fish in the lake and they are all worth $100.00 each. There will be prizes handed out for biggest fish, heaviest stringer in both adult and youth divisions, and raffle prizes, too. The QVTA also puts about 150 trout in the lake for the event, and some of them weigh up to seven pounds. The group does an excellent job of conducting the derby and people come back every year whether they got a prize-winning fish or not. Fishing should be particularly good this year. The water temperature will be warmer than usual and the trout should be very hungry. You can still register, and you can do so by going on line to quincyvalleytourism.org.