Into the outdoors: Locals, visitors make the most of Labor Day weekend

POTHOLES RESERVOIR — The boat launch at Potholes Reservoir, about 7 miles south of Moses Lake, was pretty busy early Saturday afternoon, with fishermen and vacationers on the long weekend before the end of summer.

Summer doesn’t end until Sept. 22, but by then kids are back in school and there are a million school and other activities going on, so Labor Day weekend is a good time for a trip to the lake.

The good fishing at Potholes attracted Byron Rhyne and Greg Ringelstetter, both of Oak Harbor. They come over once or twice a year, spend three or four days and meet up with a couple of their friends.

“We all served in the Navy together,” Ringelstetter said.

And they go fishing, looking for walleye, something they can’t find around Oak Harbor.

“We don’t get this kind of stuff on western side,” Rhyne said.

Alas, the walleye weren’t biting Saturday morning.

“One walleye, five crappie,” Ringelstetter said, summing up the morning’s results. “Pretty slow.”

Tim Westman and Joe Greising also were looking for walleye, setting sail on a personal watercraft.

“They say money can’t buy happiness, but have you ever seen an unhappy person on a (personal watercraft)?” Westman said. “Think about it.”

Their friendship also goes way back to when they were kids in Michigan, Westman said. He now lives in Tacoma and Greising lives in Minneapolis, but they decided to hang out for the weekend and spend a day fishing at Potholes.

Using the personal watercraft to go fishing was kind of an experiment.

“This is the first time we’ve ever tried it with two big guys on it,” Westman said. “This will either work, or it will be really bad.”

“We’ll go with it working,” Greising said.

In the end it worked, and they zoomed away from the dock.

Helen Muth and Andy Devine, of Auburn, and Diane and Doug Nicaise, of Bonney Lake, were there for the fishing.

“Maybe we’re not really seriously fishing,” Diane Nicaise said.

It was a good day to be out on the lake, she said. They come to Potholes because summer days usually are warmer on the east side.

And they come for the fishing, even if there wasn’t a lot of serious fishing Saturday afternoon.

“These guys love to come walleye fishing,” Diane Nicaise said.

Not everybody was at the lake for the walleye, or the fishing in general. Tamme Villegas, her husband Robert, of Puyallup, and a group of their friends rented a boat for an afternoon on the lake. The Villegas family reserves a spot for their RV near O’Sullivan Dam during the summer.

“We just like the people, the weather, the relaxation,” Tamme Villegas said.

Potholes State Park at 6762 state Route 262 E. was full of trailers and tents, and trailers filled the campgrounds at the MarDon Resort at 8198 state Route 262. There were even a few trailers parked in the parking lots at boat launches around Potholes.

The swimming beaches were filled with people splashing in the water, and people walked along the shore. The group of teen girls who decided to venture out on the boat dock quickly retreated to dry ground when the dock began to rock back and forth. They opted to walk on a nearby beach.

Some visitors didn’t bother with a motorized boat. Chris Richards, of Seattle, took to the water in his single-seat kayak. Richards said he decided to spend the weekend exploring places new to him, and Potholes was one of them.

“I read about this place in a book,” he said. “It’s some place I’ve never seen before. So I decided to come out and take a look.”

Not all fishermen bothered with a boat, either. A man and boy walked by, carrying fishing poles, heading for a spot along the shore.