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Hello All,
It's been awhile since I’ve written a report so I figured I would do this one. I've spent the last 2.5 years going to school at EWU in Cheney so I was able to fish a lot of the eastern lakes and the Columbia quite a bit, this gave me a great chance to post reports. I recently graduated from EWU and I am now attending UI in Moscow. So needless to say it has been awhile since I've been fishing Washington due to the cost.

But today I decided to bite the bullet and get a Washington non-resident license and the discover pass. I have to tell ya, the cost was a major deterrent for me not fishing in Washington since the move. It's hard for me justifying a fishing license that costs the same as all of my hunting and fishing and tags here in Idaho. But none the less I enjoy the Washington fishery and I'm used to the lakes because I was a resident for awhile.

I fished out of the Wawawai (USACE) Launch located at N46.629812 W117.380347 . This was a shore fishing trip, I wanted to check out the grade of the Wawawai River Road and also how accessible the launch would be if I did bring the boat down. The nice part about Wawawai is that it is a USACE operated launch so in the LAUNCH area the Discover Pass is not required. This is not true in the Wawawai County Park area north of the launch by a quarter mile. In the county park I believe the discover pass is required. Anyone that knows different please let us know.

I went down to the river to try and catch walleye...didn't really work out. I brought the walleye arsenal, I tried all the rap named crankbaits you can think of hoping they were up in the shallow water or the chance I could get a few. No dice. So I switched the basic rig i've used all across the country, a number 4 aberdeen hook with a number 5 split shot 18" from the hook, and tipped the hook with a half nightcrawler trailer. I worked the shore walking down to the end of the Wawawai Launch area. Caught about 6 smallmouths nothing over the 12" mark, one really large yellow perch and a chiselmouth. First chiselmouth of my life so that was pretty exciting.

Overall good fishing from the shore, as good as I would have expected. Plus I got some good idea now about what to do when I bring my boat down there either later this week or next weekend. I will be sure to post any news on the boat trip as well. The USACE has posted high numbers of Chinook over Lower Granite so if you’re a blackmouth fisherman you may want to look into it. I also go a nice treat when I saw a single prop rear mounted plane skimming across the water right in front of the launch, something I don't exactly get to see everyday.

FL

goosegetter79

6/4/2012 7:57:00 AM

I don't believe you need the discover pass for the park as it is run by the county and not the state. You need the discover pass for state parks. There should be a sign at the park tho saying whether or not you need the discover pass.

Mike Hutsell

6/4/2012 10:24:00 AM

Have you heard of any walleyes being caught in the snake river in that area. I've been waiting for them to get there. I'd love to see more of those jumbo perch too. If you want to catch the chinook in Snake in Washington you can forget about that, as soon as they got there in catchable numbers the game dept closed it!!! The Clearwater in Idaho is stll open.

ericksg

6/4/2012 4:02:00 PM

i've heard of one walleye caught on the snake above lower granite dam. i tried a couple weeks ago below the dam out of boyer park, only caught 1 smallie and squawfish.

rwl

6/4/2012 7:17:00 PM

boat is definitely the way to go. It seemed slower for bass on Sunday compared with earlier in the week. Crankbaits have been working better for me than senkos or grubs. Surface temp was as high as 60 where there is less flow and floating debris. Other spots are as low as 54. My wife was casting a topwater plug out into open water (reverse of what I was suggesting) and had a big female bass try to kill it a couple of times in about 12 feet of water.

fowl_language

6/8/2012 6:49:00 PM

I've heard rumors about some people catching walleye there, but so far I have not been able to substantiate the claims. I am skeptical but the guy I got the recommendation from is usually reliable.

I'll have to try top water next time, still trying to find a way to get the boat down the grade. That discover pass is still a mystery to me...you can...you can't..you can...ugh

firemedic75

6/22/2012 8:29:00 PM

Im heading to camp at Chief Timothy late July what type of fishing should I try for and what will be biting..

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