What’s hot is the ice out bite on Roses Lake for planter Rainbows and Tiger Trout. The Steelhead are still biting baited jigs on the Upper Columbia. Rufus Woods provided pretty good early morning fly-fishing for smaller triploids. Deepwater trolling on Chelan for Lake Trout continues to be productive. It truly is all good now.
Roses shore anglers should continue to have success with slip sinker rigs baited with dough baits, Pautzke eggs or worm and marshmallow combos. Boat anglers have the best of it. These early season ‘bows will eagerly bite a trolled or cast 1/8 ounce Worden’s Lures green Roostertail. Fishing a Mack’s Lures Flashlite in front of their wedding ring produces fish to, but it does dampen the fight of these foot long footballs. Trolled green and black flies with an action disk by wiggle fin in front is also very effective. In addition to loads of Rainbow Trout, we have caught some Tiger Trout up to two pounds.
The Upper Columbia Steelhead fishing continues to be quite good on Lake Pateros using baited quarter ounce Rock Dancer jigs from Mack’s Lures baited with purple shrimp. Running and gunning continues to be the order of the day.
On Lake Chelan I would suggest hitting the shoulders of Mack Bar early then move to the trench later in the day. Fish Worden Lures U20 flatfish in either Luminous Chartreuse or Purple Glow off the downriggers and those Rushin’ Salmon Wobblers by Critter Gitter off the outriggers.
We had a good early morning report out of Rufus this reporting period. Our fly guy reported 18 fish caught in 4 hours casting wooly buggers from the shore up in the vicinity of the net pens. They did appear to be mostly recent releasees with floy tags in them.
Your fishing tip of the week is to use turns and varied speeds to trigger strikes. This was particularly successful on Roses during the reporting period. For more detailed information check out KOZI’s website for the podcast.
Your kid’s tip of the week is to get them out on Roses. This is fast action kid friendly fishing at it’s finest. Remember that short attention span and electronic competition.
The safety tip of the week is to check the gear lube level in those lower units. Remember lube cheap, lower unit expensive. Also, remember to put that plug back in before launching. You don’t want to be that guy.
Pictured: 3/3/10 Andy Byrd of Manson with a limit of Roses Trout. There are 3 Tigers and a couple of Rainbows in the mix. 3/5/10 Jeff Witkowski of Big Dog and Chelan with a 2 pound tagged Rufus Triploid. 3/6/10 Mike Hodge of East Wenatchee with a nice upper Columbia metalhead. 3/7/10 Steve and Valerie Mapua of Kent with James Murray and Jeffrey Tropianilo of Covington with their Lake Chelan Macks.
What a great time to be a fisherman in the Chelan Valley!
