Cold and wet weather has kept many anglers off the water in the region lately. There are still many very good fishing opportunities, though, and when there are breaks in the weather, people are out taking advantage of them.
The torrential rains we have been getting here in Leavenworth finally stopped so I ran over to check on the Icicle River. There were a few more vehicles in the parking area near the handicapped platform. Just as I arrived a young boy started yelling that he had a fish on. I watched him struggle with a big coho and his father ran down to the bank with a net. He managed to scoop it up and he and his son celebrated. The boy immediately called his mother and bragged that he just landed his second salmon! He was casting a pink jig from the platform, and it sure worked. I talked to another angler that was casting from the platform, and he had landed a fish earlier that morning and had several “chasers” that he could see go after his spinner. Although the water is very high it has cleared from the previous days when it rose quickly with the heavy rain. Obviously, there are more fish moving into the Icicle and fishing should continue to be good for a while.
A number of years ago when I got back from a steelhead fishing trip on the Deschutes River in Oregon, I left my fly rod at the takeout. The rod was made for me by my good friend Bill McGuire and had been with me on trips to Belize where I caught my first bonefish with it and I caught many steelhead on the Methow River with it. I was just sick and didn’t even tell my wife about it for six months. She was a good friend of Bill’s, too. Many months later I got an e-mail from Kevin Brown, asking if I knew a guy named Bill McGuire, and during a phone call told me he had found my rod at the Goodwill store in the Dalles, Oregon! He was with his wife in the store and spotted what he knew was a Sage blank clear across the room. Instead of shipping it he insisted that he personally return the rod to me. My wife and I immediately planned a trip to the Oregon coast with just one stop planned, and that was to meet Kevin. I was so thankful, and I invited Kevin and his father to join me that summer for a trip to Banks Lake and Rufus Woods. We had a great time. This experience proved to me that there are still some very special people out there. Kevin is one of them.
Sure, it’s cold outside, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t good fishing opportunities. I looked back at some of the photos that I took in November, and I found some great shots of fish caught on cold late fall days. One was taken on Lake Chelan and showed a couple of very big kokanee. I remember this one in particular as the two anglers that came with me that day really weren’t dressed for the weather. They toughed it out, and although we didn’t get many fish, they didn’t complain and were willing to go with me again. I am sure they will be bundled up next time. The photo was taken below Rocky Point, which is off the north shore of Lake Chelan, and is one of my best places to look for kokanee any time of year. I used to always launch at the State Park and run up above the Yacht Club in the fall and winter, but in recent years I have found good numbers of kokanee in the lower basin. I don’t expect to catch kokanee as large as the ones in the photo this fall, but I do think there are good numbers of them in the lake.
One of the places that you will find me on a late fall or early winter day is at Medicare Beach on Potholes Reservoir. There is a long stretch of beach here on the east side of the reservoir that is a popular spot for shore angling. Big rainbow will cruise off this shore within casting distance, and patient anglers often get trout weighing 2 to 3 pounds and sometimes even larger. There’s the Perch Point Wild Camping Area located at the south end of the access. There are some picnic tables scattered along the park area and a couple of vault toilets. People will pick a spot on the beach, set up a couple of rod holders and cast bait as far as they can out into the water. Most people use a marshmallow and worm, marshmallow and shrimp combo or Power Bait. Many will bring a folding chair to sit in while they wait for a bite. To reach Medicare Beach, take a right off of Highway 17 between Moses Lake and Othello at Road 6 SE or Road M SE and then take a right at Road J SE. The last turn will lead you down to the beach. This week’s photo was taken at Medicare Beach.
I made another trip to the net pens on Rufus Woods Reservoir recently. I have had great success fishing here this fall and wanted to get some more of the triploid rainbow trout for my smoker. My family loves getting pieces of smoked trout over the Holidays, and I wanted to be sure I had a good supply. Rollie Schmitten and I launched the Bob Feil Boats and Motors Smoker Craft Phantom at the middle net pens, and I fired up the Mercury 250 for the short run to the upper pens. I deployed the Minn Kota at the place where I always find fish and checked the screen on the Garmin. The image wasn’t encouraging, but we tried jigging on one rod and Power Bait on the other rods. Nothing was happening, and I was blaming that on the fact that there was no current. They started the feeding machine and I thought that would spark a bite, but even that didn’t happen. When we got back to the dock we talked to other boats, and they had only three fish between seven anglers. The people that did the best were fishing from the shore right next to the launch!
