4/12-13 Rufus?

Looks like the kid and I will be home alone this weekend, so we'll be doing some fishing. It's suppose to be be in the upper 60s, maybe even 70. I wonder who will catch more total fish weight, us or the Drano crew?

AOTY catch  reported here- http://aoty.northwestkayakanglers.com/catch/show/15

Nice fatty !!  Good Job pisco.. Wonder how the Drano Crews doing?

I got skunked at EEL lake yesterday, my buddy bank fishing caught a 14 incher..

Nicely done Bill ... on the AOTY board.

You didn't post your report here.  Here's what you put on AOTY report.

Fished Rufus with my daughter and friend Steve. Steve hooked a couple in the 20-21" range, handing the rod to Janni. I landed the 18" and maybe 20 smaller fish. We brought home 5 fish with a total weight of ~20lbs

5 fish for 20lbs!!!  Nice nice nice  Were you fishing the south end by the dam?  On the fly?  What's that bright green thing hanging out of it's mouth?

Sounds like a good spot worth 35-40 inches in the Feud.

And here the pics from the AOTY report.

-Allen

Those are some thick fish PS, nice work!! Looking forward to spending some time up there.

Z

Those fish are all triploids, which is why they are so thick and deep. I don't know any other 21" trout that can go 6-7 pounds. The big ones I cleaned had huge abdominal fatty deposits like lakers. I BBQed one last night, and it was greasy like rich salmon, though not quite as flavorful.

Things have really changed from when I last fished Rufus in late November. Then, I was seeing fish spread evenly along the lake shore, especially where there were shallow flats. Often they were in only 1-3 feet of water. Even 2 weeks ago, Steve was seeing lots of fish while fishing from shore. The bright and warm weather seems to really have altered things. On Saturday, we went to an area that was new to me, Timms Ranch, off the Columbia River Road, on the Colville Confederated Reservation. ($8/day fee) That's about 20 miles above the Dam. It took us while to find any fish, and then there was a big school we could see that was along a steeper drop off that lead to a deeper flat. Fish were from 10-20' down, with smaller ones in the shallows and bigger deeper. I could look down at the little ones, which were milling around in a thick school.The chartreuse green thing you see is a Powerbait 1" Power Nymph on a 1/16th jighead. I toss that on a UL spinning rod, and twitch it for the retrieve. After several hours of steady action it died. I tried trolling a plugcut herring for a while, hoping for something bigger. Steve was holding the rod while I rowed and said he felt a bump. When I reeled in, the herring was gone. No flyfishing because we were too crowded with 3 of us. I have done well with the flyrod in less crowded conditions.

Sunday, Janni and I went to the area that we fished last fall, Brandt's Landing, about 6-7 miles above the dam, on the south shore. (Which is off the rez, so no fee.)
A family was shore fishing where we launched, and picked up a couple of small ones while we set up. But we got skunked! We cruised all over trying to find fish. At one point I marked a bunch of suspended fish, 45' feet down in 60' feet of water. I'll bet they were walleye, but I couldn't get them to bite on a worm tipped jig. The water temp was 40, on the surface, which is pretty cold for walleye.(Which reminds me, "we" need walleye on the AOTY.)

All though the triploids are supposed to be asexual, I really got the impression that they're behavior was very like pre-spawn/spawn. Instead of being spread out, they seemed to be schooled up and milling around. The higher and brighter sun seems to have driven them deeper, even though the temps are still really cold. We fished midday, so I wonder if more would be seen shallow in lowlight conditions. I have no idea what to expect for late May/early June. If you can find fish, I think 35" would be pretty easy. I could do that (35")at my local lakes too, but the fish would weigh half as much.

Z, let me know when you're coming, so I can make some plans/accommodations.