My brother Dale and I grew up around water as fishing was the family sport. We are both in our fifties so we are long on patience. Before taking this trip I spent a lot of time researching the Eastern Washington lakes on this site. At this time of year reports were long on algae bloom in Sprague and other warm water lakes, no fun spending all your time cleaning lines and lures. Rock Lake reminded me of Black Lake outside of Olympia, Wa. where we fished as boys. Perch were abundant there then.
We brought along a 10 foot inflatable raft, and a hoard of tackle for any options that might be taken. Fly fishing, trolling, and flipping gear. As noted in earlier reports, this lake is aptly named because it is not surrounded by marshmallows, we were careful not to puncture our craft on the lakes shores. The 42 pound electric kicker on the transom did not foul on weeds once in the 3 days we were able to access the lake. The plastic prop only had one bruise.
Fishermen launched each day, or arrived to fish from shore. One party fished the banks from a boat well into the night using a powerful lamp to locate rocks.
Mornings and evenings provided the greatest calm here as throughout each of four days winds blew to white caps on occasion. Numerous boaters returned whining about the lack of trolling control. Few of any of them were skunked.
We caught only two bass during this trip. We threw all manner of tackle. We trolled the first mile from the launch on several occasions, but I feared going to far uplake in lieu of the constant winds and the possibility of a sudden prolonged gusts.
About the best meal I can think of is a plate full of filleted perch. These we caught on marshmallows with night crawlers from shore at the launch. We also caught them trolling a walley harness I made, off one of the rock cliffs visible from the launch. We saw nice stringers of browns and rainbows from 12 to 18 inches which were caught from areas further North on the lake. We also heard of good bass fishing.
In all though the regulars and a local rancher reported the slowest fishing of any time in recent memory. Especially from the launch.
One hot shot reported to his girlfriend that he caught a small mouth bass nearby us on the shore. It was a perch. Some Fishermen reported scarring on some of their catch likely made by otter resident in the lake.
I would return to Rock Lake on a moments notice. It is awesomely beautiful. I am a bird watcher. There were Redtail Hawks, Black Cormorant, Golden Eagle, Barn Swallows, Rock Doves, Flicker, Osprey, Dipper, Blue Heron, Blue Wing Teal, Chucker, Grouse, Gulls, Cooper's Hawks, Morning Doves, Mallard, Canada Geese, Pheasant Meadowlark, Tree Swallows, American Coots, Eastern King Birds, several other waterfowl as well as airborne birds which I have not yet researched to know. I pretty sure I heard a Kingfisher.
We also saw a box turtle. The unwary will be alarmed by a rattle snake. We saw a Small snake at the launch shore swimming in the narrow littoral bank. Rattlers can swim.

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