by Dave Graybill, May 25, 2015

If you are an active angler, you just have to love this area. There are so many great options any time of year, and last week I had a blast exploring some of them. I caught everything from kokanee to rainbow to largemouth bass, and even spring salmon!

My fishing buddy Rollie Schmitten and I finally found a couple of free days on our calendars and I took him up to Buffalo Lake, on the Colville Indian Reservation. This scenic lake is just ten miles from the town of Coulee Dam, but it gets very little pressure. My wife Eileen and I discovered it years ago on a Memorial Weekend and were amazed how few people were there. We’ve been back many times since. Schmitten was impressed. Mike Hall, who runs the Buffalo Lake Resort at one end of the lake, greeted us and got our licenses for us. We got on the water in the late afternoon and found the kokanee biting at the far end of the lake. Kokanee are abundant this year, but aren’t very big, from 10 to 12 inches. Before we left for our rooms at the Coulee House for the evening, we saw a bald eagle, an osprey and even wild horses on the hillside of the lake. The next morning we trolled our way down the lake and found the kokanee still biting and this time some nice rainbow, too. We got rainbow to 2 pounds fishing kokanee gear. We tried some other areas of the lake with the same result. There were kokanee and rainbow everywhere we went. The rainbow were all triploids and the larger fish were excellent in the pan when I returned that evening. This makes for a great get away for a couple of days. Fish Buffalo as soon as you can get there. Then go into town and have dinner at La Presa. Stay at Coulee House and maybe take in the show on the face of the dam. Have breakfast at Flo’s Cafe the next morning and fish until you have your five rainbow and five kokanee to take home. Oh, I almost forgot. There are largemouth bass in Buffalo Lake, too. Schmitten got three of them on his first four casts. We had a blast fishing for them at the far end of the lake before we left. Also, there is a very popular crawfish season on Buffalo beginning July 1st. The lake is famous for its big crawdads. On Wednesday when we left we saw a few folks in the cabins and the RV park at the resort but the only boats we saw on the lake were Colville Tribal research boats. This is a real gem that few people visit. Our three-day license cost $20.00. I tell people it’s like having a membership to a private fishing club!

On Friday I met my friend Brian Anatatmula, his father-in-law Don Shurtz, his son Josh Anatatmula and Josh’s his cousin Ethan at Mill Bay at Lake Chelan. We put the Kingfisher in the water here and headed down to the area just below Rocky Point where we saw several boats trolling. We put our gear down and got a couple of nice kokanee fairly quickly. Then they just disappeared. I got impatient and ran across to the blue roofs and out in the middle trolling around, looking for schools. This was a waste of time. When I got back to where we started we found them again. There were good schools of kokanee here and we got them from 60 to 80 feet deep on our Kokabow Fishing Tackle rigs. I started out with single blades ahead of the spinners and then went to double blades. The fish ranged in size from 11 inches to 16 ½. The two boys did all the work, taking turns cranking in the fish and netting them. I was amazed how few we lost at the boat, which is not typical of kokanee fishing. When we quit we had 17 in the cooler. We would have had a lot more if I hadn’t wandered off. I forgot the rule: don’t leave fish to find fish.

The next morning I was up at 2 a.m. to get ready to meet Shane Magnuson, Upper Columbia Guide Service, at the take out in Leavenworth to fish the opening day of the spring salmon season on the Wenatchee River. He had been doing well on the Icicle and was eager to get in on the open portion of the Wenatchee. Along with us was another fishing friend, Dan Schleifers from Manson and Eric Granstrom of Gaboon Productions, who brought his video camera. Granstrom was enthralled with our float down to the mouth of the Icicle in the pitch dark. This was something that Icicle River spring salmon anglers are accustomed to but it was a new experience for him. We anchored next to a couple of other boats. An hour before sunrise Magnuson ran out two rods baited with herring and two with jet-planed eggs. Schleifers was in the front and it was a hoot watching him jump every time a rod bounced, and they did a lot of bouncing in the early morning. The rule of thumb for springers is not to touch the rod until it is bent solidly over and line is coming off the reel. This is often hard to do. It is amazing how these fish strike, strike, drop the bait and then come back and finally eat it and head downstream. Magnuson had a good day, putting five springers in the boat. W had one for dinner with fresh asparagus and it was something special.

As families make plans for summer fun, a good place to look for recreational facilities is the web site of the Grant County PUD. The utility has completed several projects and there are even more facilities available to the public. The web site offers an easy way to explore what is available along the Columbia River from Rock Island to Desert Aire. Go to grantpud.org and click on the recreation button to open a map and other features.

This week I hope to explore some other water. I might try kokanee fishing at Billy Clapp. I am also going to float the Yakima River with Johnny Boitano of the Troutwater Fly Shop in Ellensburg and the new Director of Fish and Wildlife. He’s an avid angler I want to introduce him to the quality trout fishing it offers.

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