This is for those who want to know before making a long trip to Rufus Woods. I went twice this Spring.

First was late April for three days. I launched at Seaton's Grove. I went about half way to the first net pen. I trolled most of the time because I found the triploids to be super aggressive in slowish water closer to shore at about 18 to 20 feet. Water was 44 on top. No reason to anchor up when the triploids were so much fun to catch after a long winter. Biggest was 4 lbs, but most about 1-to-2 pounds. I only kept a couple of big ones for smoking.

On this trip, I kept my lure type open for hooking walleye. I trolled with a jointed Rapala most often cause I could keep it slow and maintain action in the cold water. I put on a smaller siwash hook at the rear to be able to hook and release the small mouthed triploids.

Walleye was slow going and I covered lots of small bays where they would stage before spawning. I caught a 5lb. female and a 4-1-2lb. female. I was surprised they were females cause I'm used to the area around Celilo where the males are that size. Anyhow, the females were full of eggs which made me feel bad, but too late by then. Only 2 walleye. No small males. Just 2 good sized females in 3 days. One on the Rapala and one on a worm harness. This was definitely prespawn action with the water to cold yet.

Second trip only had 1 real good weather day (cloudy and not windy) and caught many triploids again with the biggest 3 lbs. Finally caught a male walleye at 3 1-2 lbs in the same little bay where I got the females earlier. Like you would- I thought I'll anchor in the small bay and fish every foot of that water for walleye until I get my limit- NOPE. Maybe 1 strike for 3 days. I had to try it and used a quiet spot lock trolling motor and no real anchor to scare them, I couldn't raise another walleye mostly with night crawlers of various presentations. I asked other guys and no one was catching much if any walleyes. I wasted time that could have been spent getting triploids for the smoker.

I couldn't really find the bays with definitely warmer water that the walleyes would be more active in. It was prespawn and pretty slow even thought the individual fish had real nice size.

As a note to others- I went to Wells Dam last summer for salmon. On a crowded day I pulled a crawdadcrankbait for walleye or bass. Immediately caught a very long and spawned out female that went 8 lbs. I was surprised by how thin it was. The females at Rufus were small, but fat however still only 5 lbs. I'm used to the walleye further down river which eat the shad in summer. They seem much bigger and fatter.

Good fishing.

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