After a really nice suggestion from a WL member, I made the 5 hour drive to Lake Roosevelt to try something new from the pontoon. Let me first say that I knew nothing of Eastern Washington and found the area to be beautiful. Also, the people I encountered were incredibly kind and helpful.

On my arrival night, I launched from the small town just before Seven Bays and fished the deep stuff because of what appeared to be astronomical surface water temperatures for trout (65-69). I caught next to nothing, but did mark several fish near the mouth of what I would call the Hawk Bay or the Hawk Arm of the lake.

I began early on Wednesday (15th) in that area and had an absolute riot with what to me are “nice rainbows”, the smallest at 12” and the largest at exactly 20”. After the rainbow portion of the trip, I tried everything I thought I knew from the Midwest, but couldn’t get completely on top of the walleye game. While the rainbows came on wedding rings at 35 to 45’, the walleyes came very sporadically on a little bit of everything from bottom walkers with crawler harnesses to wedding rings and worms trolled at 44 feet. Jigs and spin-n-glows produced nothing. After about eight hours of trying for walleye, I had five to my name, but the biggest one was 16 inches with three of them ranking as “barely keeper perch”. I’d have to say they were “cute” at best. While a couple of them were dragged for a while, all three “miniatures” did come home under the justification of “wanting to have enough to taste”.

The day after was more of the same on rainbows, but I didn’t stay long enough to try for walleyes again. I returned from LR with enough trout to smoke and enough walleye to suggest that, “Yep, they’re just as amazing on the table out here as they are everywhere else on Earth”. I’ll look forward to trying another new area soon anyone's suggestion. Thanks so much MB87 for setting me up with a wonderful, wonderful time.

A "be well" to all.

mw

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