First off, between 6 guys we landed 6 fish on opening day. Second day, I only landed one out of party of 6. I don't expect a slaying but when you have a ton of guys who know how to fish be unable to get ONE BITE in the first opening days of fishing in an only 2 mile long lake then there's cause for concern. On top of that there was reportedly 20,000 fish stocked into this winter lake only in the spring . Additionally, the local newspaper in Spokane ran a column that fourth of July was "heavily stocked" with trout up to 10 pounds. I hope many people will please respond either way to this comment (asking for help as to whether this is an anomaly or is there something fishy going on with Fourth of July Lake)? Thank you.

In other words, why shouldn't people be able to catch one fish if the lake has not been fished since March 31, 2017 and it has been heavily stocked with fish up to 10 pounds? And the opening day was November 24, 2017.

gnmaua1234 I have been fishing this like since I was 12 and I have never seen such bad fishing on opening day. It could be that there is a lot of food in the lake already, and the water level is much higher. But everyone I talked they said It was terrible, the only ones that caught were the ones who went in the morning, which is unusual. I wanted to get there early but things got in the way and I didn't get there until 9:30 A.m. I personally believe they might not have even stocked it, but that is just my opinion.

someone mentioned that the birds of prey figured out the stocked fish were easy pickings all spring and summer, perhaps this is part of the problem, still had a good time hanging out with my son

went there last year sucked sounds the same thanks for saving me a trip. I don't believe anything they say ...

I've now fished fourth of july four seperate times since the opener. In total, between three people, have landed 2 fish. One was a 18" 2.97 lb caught on a gold kastmaster and the other was a 24 3/4" 6lb caught on a gold spoon. I've hiked from one end to nearly the other fishing several spots along the way, took my float tube and finally a kayak without any better success. On the kayak I used my fish finder and was having a hard time spotting ANY fish. Maybe marked 15 all day long on the entire lake. Not what you would expect from a lake stocked with 20k keepers and should have carry overs... Tried worms, powerbait, crank baits, immatation craw, spoons, spinners, trolling with wedding rings, stripped streamers with the fly rod and out of pure frusteration even tried some dry flies since I thought I might have heard a fish rise nearby. Did that 20k stocking report come out on April 1st by chance???

Well as someone who worked with the P.UD. on one of the dams. We counted baby trout and salmon from the hatcheries in th gatewells on the dam. We netted them then put them in a tank and counted by hatchery. Lets just say the regulations say hatchery fish have the adipose clipped!, Well not so much truth to that! Maybe 1 out of 10 was clipped. The way we could tell the hatchery was they had a 3 dot colored tatoo on there gill plate. That would dissapear in a few months. So no you cant believe anything this liberal state or liberal ran departments say!