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The parking lot at the north end of West Medical Lake already had ~20 vehicles when I arrived at 6:55 AM. Although it was cool and foggy to start out, there were many boats and shore fishermen. I fished from the northwest shoreline right next to the first Ponderosa Pine, and on my fourth cast at 7:10 AM, I got my first (13") Rainbow Trout. I used a silver, 1/4-oz. Kastmaster slab-jig (counted down about 4 seconds, and jigged sideways back to the shoreline). In 1-1/4 hours, I caught-and-released four Rainbows (two 13", one 16", and one 18") and kept one fat 16" trout (full of eggs) for dinner. I could see and hear satisfied shore anglers (speaking English and Russian) steadily catching trout (mostly with bait, but some with artificial lures like me).
The boats were anchored mostly about 200 yards south of where I was, along the western shoreline. Some boats were slow-trolling. I believe that the shore fishermen were doing better than the boaters.
I at 8:25 AM to go eat breakfast and to give some more space to the nearby fishermen (roughly spaced about 100 feet apart). Today's "Opening Day" at West Medical was much better than last year's opener, from what I could see.

dluders

4/27/2014 6:02:00 AM

Rich Landers' blog on the Spokesman-Review website confirmed that West Medical, Fish, Fishtrap, and Williams Lakes were the top producers on Opening Day 2014 in the Spokane area: http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors/2014/apr/26/weather-cant-chill-opening-day-fishing-success/ .
P.S. In my last sentence in my report above, I should have inserted the word "left": "I LEFT at 8:25 AM to go eat breakfast...." :)

dluders

4/29/2014 5:47:00 AM

Update: On the website http://www.spokesman.com/blogs/outdoors/2014/apr/28/results-opening-day-fishing-lakes/ , Rich Landers reports the following WA Dept of Fish & Wildlife fish counts in Spokane County -- the "average number of trout caught per angler on Saturday" (April 26, 2014):
"Badger, 42 with 51 for 1.2; Clear, 29 with 49 for 1.7; Fish, 52 with 137 for 2.6; Williams, 48 with 172 for 3.6; and West Medical, 58 with 182 for 3.1."
So, it seems that West Medical is a top producer!

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