A friend of mine and her son went to Riffe Lake today. It was the first time her son had ever been on a boat. We got thre at around 9:30 am and fished all day til 6:30pm. We had a blast although the fishing in general was slow. We started out at the Mossy Rock Dam and trolled about a mile from the dam Eastward on the far shore. There was very little action on the top by the silvers and I didn't get very good readings on fish anywhere. We wound up catching 1 keeper and releasing 2 small fish. The excitement in this part of the day (11:00am) was when we hooked something that we set the hook into and couldn't move the fish. I felt the head shake and it started bending my pole over hard. In the next minute, the hook gave way leaving us wondering what the heck it was. It was cool. The depth that was most favorable for hookups seemed to be 24 feet. The fish were suspended in about 65 feet of water. Around 2pm we decided to move after a long lull down at Mossyrock. The other fishermen weren't killing them either (3 and 4 fish) was what we saw of the boats leaving.

We went up lake toward the mouth of the Cowlitz (about 10 miles) to a section of the lake that had a large (oil Can) like buoy and fished open water around there for the next 3 hours. We fished Needlefish and small Rapala lures and wound up building a catch of 7 more keepers and 2 or 3 that we let go because they were small. They were all nice sized Silvers in the 12-15 inch range and 1 Cutthroat about 12 inches. All of the fish were very bright and healthy. I have attached some pics. My friend's son reeled them all in and did a great job while his mom and I performed like deckhands! It was a great time that I reflect back on as a kid myself! I hope he will grow to love fishing, respect the sport and understand as I do, how truly blessed we are to be able to go to a place like Riffe and enjoy the outdoors like I do. We saw at least 6 pair of Eagles and watched several get chased around by nesting Osprey protecting their eggs and young! Just amazing and beautiful! What a place!