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Pleased that this is my first report...and it was a good day on the water! While launching we (my 8yo son and I) passed another angler who gave a disappointing report, not very hot out there. Well, we hit it anyway on the north side of the lake at the dam end. It was a bit windy from the west so we started west to east. Fish on the sounder at 35'-85', two downriggers out at 45' and 60'. Put out the extra rod with 3-1/2oz banana weight 40 pulls.

It didn't take long to pick up the first silver, so tiny my son wondered if we would throw it back! NOPE! It hasn't been a stellar year on lakes for us, not even close to one limit boated yet so quantity was the goal for the day if possible. We ended up with most of our fish on worms at the 40' mark though the salad shrimp made a good showing at varying depths as well. All-in-all my son had a great time reeling in all the fish, 2 respectable 15" trout and 8 smallish silvers.

Our setup is shown in pics and as I mentioned we used worms and cocktail shrimp, had to make a bait stop on the way down as I completely forgot the coon shrimp and shoe peg garlic corn at home. Luckily that was the only real misstep of the day! We used our river rods with bait casters, lots of good action even for the small fish. We were typically 1.0-1.3 mph SOG the whole time. I let out 80'-100' of line before attaching to the downrigger clip, that may be why the banana weight rig only produced a couple fish.

Thanks to all those who report on here, most of my intel was from NWFR.

Yakhusker

9/9/2020 10:12:23 AM

Any day you can take your kids is a great day! One of my favorite lakes to fish. Fishing has been tougher there this year for larger coho but they’re around. Thanks for sharing!

Fish Exterminator

9/13/2020 6:35:18 PM

After they dumped 400,000 tripods in riffe the silvers can't be found...they ruined that fishery for the great tasting silvers.

DC1959

9/17/2020 5:29:27 AM

You understand that riffe is not a stocked lake, the coho and chinook that are in there are the leftovers from after they trap their escapement numbers from the upper cowlitz, there are no fish ladders for mayfield or riffe so salmon and stealhead..are trucked up to riffe to continue up the upper cowlitz to spawn and they trap the smolt before the hit the lake...so good returns means good yrs ..and bad returns means crappy...that's my home waters for over 20 yrs....knowing how the areas you fish are managed is pretty key to success...good luck out there

Billm

9/22/2020 4:15:20 PM

They did stock the lake this year with triploid trout. Wish they hadn't.

nerka nailer

9/18/2020 7:37:50 PM

Nice job!

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