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18 - Lake Roosevelt South End to Spokane Confluence Report
Washington

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04/10/2014
61° - 65°
Bottom Fishing From Boat
Rainbow Trout
Worms
Chartreuse
Mostly Sunny
Jig
All Day
Under 40°
04/10/2014
4
1748

Brother in Law and I got to Spring Canyon at 7:10 and had lines in the water at 7:30. There was one other boat in the water just before us, and one launched just after.

We had 2 leaded line set ups out the sides, and 1 longline setup out the back. Both he and I have a two pull endorsement. We were getting bumped consistently on all three setups. About 1/20min. Consistently, our strikes would not result in a hookup. Most often, the fish would short strike our trolling flies, and just bite the tip of our worm off. Many times, we would get a hookup, only to have it come unbuttoned halfway, or 10 feet from the boat. We trolled out in the deep early, but mainly stayed on the launch side of shore and trolled in 30-80 feet of water just off of the shore heading upriver.

We boated 4 decent Rainbows by noon, and made 1 final troll across the lake before deciding to pitch swirly tailed jigs in the bays on the other side of the lake. We hadn't gotten a bump in about 1 hour trolling, so we made the right call there.

Immediately after throwing jigs into shore and swimming them towards the boat, we caught 3 trout and missed as many in a 30 minute time frame around 1:00. We continued along the shore and into other bays, but the bite seemed to slow up. We made our way back upriver and began pulling a jig behind the boat and jigging the bottom w/ a worm and picked up 2 more around 4:00. It seemed to take forever to limit out that last hour, but we got #10 at just before 5, swimming the jig. Chartreuse jig head and olive green combo were the hot jig color with or without worm.

I rated the day a 4 because we did get our limit, but we really had to get after them. We caught 10 fish, all but 2 in the 16-18 inch range. 1 was a 14" cookie cutter, and 1 was a beautiful 20" native. Trolling is fun, but there's nothing like having those big bows slam your light gear as you fish for them like a bass in the shallows. Many of them had crawdads in their stomachs from picking them off the rocks.

Most bites came when there was a consistent wind to break up the water, both trolling and jigging.


Comments

downriggeral
4/11/2014 12:23:00 PM
The ripple on the water really seems to help. Are you running stinger hooks on the flies? I run a #10 Gamagatsu red treble, really takes care of the short nips. I also don't extend the worm much past the stinger hook. Just a thought.
Thanks for the report - Alan

PS we have been really spoiled with fast limits all winter, haven't we?
1996Monark
4/11/2014 12:52:00 PM
Thanks for the report. I was just talking with Alan last night about how LR was doing and where he thought it would be good.
I am heading out of Ft. Spokane tomorrow morning and hope to do well and post some more information for all.
Thanks - Greg
kevinbe
4/11/2014 1:35:00 PM
downriggeral-

Good information. We were using trolling flies with a treble hook on them. We tried tipping the treble, then we went to tipping the front hook and not leaving much past the treble hook like you suggested. Ironically, the most solid hook up came from a single hook black fly. smaller than all the other flies.
And yes, I concur with your sentiments. This is a great fishery that continues to produce year round excitement.
afk
4/11/2014 6:49:00 PM
First of all I want to compliment somebody for wearing a great shirt! Tony Esposito would be proud! Nice fish too!
kevinbe
4/12/2014 1:10:00 PM
Thanks-
The playoffs start on the 16th. We've got a good chance of hoisting the cup 3/5 years and re-peating as cup champs this year.
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

Phone: (509) 687-0709