Hello to all, a newbie here to share a recent trip to Rufus. I was there for 10 days through Memorial weekend. I am avid fly fisherman and have been fishing Rufus for about 16 years now. One of my favorite times to go is the week of Memorial weekend. This year in spite of huge releases out of Coulee we still managed to find very good angling for the rainbows. Hitting backwater areas from Tim Farm to upper pens caught mostly hatchery fish and some triploids. Black or brown buggers on type III & IV sink lines worked great. There were also a ton of smaller, adipose clipped hatchery bows with literally no fins. Rumor has it they washed out from Roosevelt. Anyway the best fish we got (and released) was 8 lbs. We saw real nice wild bows, 18-22 inches and hatchery holdovers from Roosevelt out of Seatons Grove and I managed to land 3 walleye on the fly too! Also on a big black bugger I tie called the Metallic Glass Bead Bugger. Even took a nice brown trout from the upper stretch above the mouth of the Nespelem. Overall the trip was great and very few anlgers were out. As I was leaving on Memorial Day morning, my camping neighbors said the bite was hot for the double digit triploids off the bank at the pens. Supposedly, anglers were hooking up in just about every cast. The water temp was 50 F when I left. Once the water settles down, the fishing should be fantastic.

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