This was a great week for fishing, especially for kids. The Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge started last Friday, and they set up a fishing pond and there were some whoppers landed by the youngsters. On Saturday the 20th Rock Island is hosting a free kids fishing day at the Pit Pond. This is a great event.

The Annual Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge that took place last weekend was a resounding success. Reel Recreation, the group that organizes and stages the event did an excellent job, conducting a quality event. The sixty participants enjoyed sunny skies and calm water and turned in record numbers of triple fish catches. Anglers that had been able to catch a walleye, bass, trout or whitefish in a single day had been rare in the past. This year eight anglers accomplished this feat, and six on Sunday. The overall fishing was very good on Saturday, but more difficult on Sunday, particularly for walleye. There were different winners for biggest fish of each species on Saturday and Sunday, for both adults and youth. The biggest stringer on Sunday was turned in by Jim Stanely at 5.68 pounds. The combined best stringer weight for both days was 14.44 pounds and was turned in by Brian Waters. He won the grand prize, which was a tricked out kayak valued at $3,000. Cash and prizes for the biggest fish of each species was awarded each day of the Challenge. For complete details and you can visit the Reel Recreation website or Facebook page. The website address is ReelRecreation.com.

The opening day of trout fishing season is coming up later this month. There are several events planned on our year round waters, and they are typically focused on getting kids and their families out fishing. There are a couple of them planned for the third Saturday in April every year. One that I helped with over 25 years ago takes place in Rock Island at the Pit Pond. The City of Rock Island does some landscaping clean up and tidies up the shorelines in anticipation of the crowds that show up. Local volunteers will be serving donuts and coffee in the morning and hot dogs, snacks, and soft drinks later in the day. Members of the Wenatchee Sportsman Association will be at the event with loaner rods and tackle and bait for the kids to use. The City of Rock Island and the local volunteers have made this into something folks look forward to every year.  Also, on the same day and going on at least as long as the Rock Island event, is the Rotary Club kids fishing day at Oasis Park in Ephrata. The ponds at both locations are loaded with fresh trout to assure the kids will catch a few.

My friend Dennis Beich invited me to join him for a morning of fishing on Billy Clapp Lake last Friday. We had fished there a couple of weeks ago, and only got one fish, so we wanted to give it another try. Usually, we get a lot of nice rainbow on Billy Clapp this time of year. We made our way up the lake to the area above the big basalt island, and there were fish rising everywhere. There was some kind of hatch going on and the fish were actively feeding. Maybe that’s why they weren’t interested in what we were offering them. We trolled all kinds of plugs, and Dennis even tried trolling a fly, and still nothing. So, we put our trout gear away and pulled out our walleye gear and headed up to the top end of the lake. This is where we have both caught walleye in the past.There were three or four other boats fishing in the same area, but no one was catching anything. It may be too early. I will use this for an excuse anyway. We still had a great time. It was a beautiful day to be on the water.

Can you ever have enough triploids in the freezer for smoking? My buddies and I don’t think so, and we made another trip to the middle net pens on Rufus Woods. James Lebow, Ryan Harris, and Michael Ericson joined me, and we had high hopes. The four of us have limited in a short time here in the past. Not on Wednesday. We gave it up after about three hours with just one fish. On my way back I stopped at Seatons Grove to see if many boats had launched there. I walked down to the boat ramp and saw the tell tale swirl of a fish on the surface, so I grabbed a rod, cast it out and jammed it hard into some rocks. I went to my truck to get out of my warm clothes, and when I looked down to check my rod--it was gone! A fish had pulled it into the water. I had another rod rigged and started casting in hope of snagging it. It was dead calm, and I saw it on the bottom. I hooked the rod, pulled it in and there was a fish on the line—and I landed a 6 pound triploid! This week’s photo is of the fish I landed.

Typically, by this time of year the water temperatures in our reservoirs have warmed enough to get the walleye bite going. I looked at a photo taken at this time of year on Moses Lake that showed me with a 20 inch walleye. It was landed from across Connelly Park. Connelly Park which is open for the season.

The park is open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., but it is closed on Monday and Tuesday through the month of April. I like to use this launch as it is the closest to the upper end of Moses Lake and that’s where the action starts in the spring. On Potholes Reservoir, many anglers make their first trips for walleye on Lind Coulee. There has been some significant improvements to the Samsons Pit launch, which is just below the mouth of Lind Coulee, at the far eastern side of O’Sullivan Dam. My friends and I have had some good days in the early spring on Potholes in the Coulee. I am not sure if the docks are in at the State Park. The lake level should allow for launching at Blythe, which is just down the shore from the State Park toward Mar Don.

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