April has started with wonderful weather. You need to get your new fishing license if you want to get out on the year-round lakes, to practice for the general opening of the lowland lakes trout season, which is the fourth Saturday of April. Meanwhile, there are walleye and bass to fish for. They are starting to wake up on our area reservoirs.

When I want to know what’s happening on Potholes Reservoir in the early spring, I can always call Shelby Ross. If there are walleye to be caught he will know. There are a lot of anglers that look forward to the walleye fishing on Potholes and they will be glad to hear that fish are being caught. Shelby put eleven walleye in the boat recently and he noted that they were all males. He figures the big females are spawning and won’t be feeding for a while. He said there are a few anglers jigging for the walleye, but he prefers to troll spinners and bottom bouncers. That way he is covering more water. I was fishing with my friend Brian Neilson in his boat. It looks like we were in Lind Coulee, which is a great place to start on Potholes in the spring. I often find fish in the Coulee and then just out of the mouth of the Coulee at Perch Point.

I talked to Nic Alexander, one of the organizers of the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge, the other day. He was busy getting sponsors for the event, and rattled off the names of several companies that were already providing prizes. There are always plenty of great things being awarded to those who are winners in the derby. Whether they are winners or not, the kids always get something for being a part of the event. The Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge starts on Friday, April 12th, with lots of things planned for the youngsters. The highlight is the “trout pond” that is set up off the beach at Coulee Playland. Thanks to Pacific Seafoods, the pond is loaded with fat rainbow for the kids to catch. In addition to the trout pond, there will be casting instructions, a s’more station, face painting, gold panning, food vendors and even live music. The fun starts at 1 p.m. and lasts till 5 p.m. On Saturday the tournament begins, and anglers will be out looking for trout, bass, walleye, and whitefish. You can learn more about the Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge and even register in advance by going to the Reel Recreation website.

Nic Alexander, one of the organizers with Reel Recreation thought it would be fun to make a run at getting a “triple fish” and give anglers some pointers on how to do it. He recruited Austin Moser and me to fish with him to catch a walleye, bass, and trout in the same day. We started our day looking for walleye and Austin took us to one of his favorite areas between Steamboat Rock and Barker Canyon and Nic got a nice walleye fishing with bottom bouncers and spinners. A green sparkly Smile Blade in fifty feet of water was the best lure. With that done we tried for smallmouth bass. Nic directed us to some of the areas he catches smallmouth, on jigs and jerk baits, and we worked our way up to Osborne Bay. We were casting to the broken rock along the highway when a smallmouth grabbed the Senko I was dragging across the bottom. Now we just needed to get a trout. Austin ran out a variety of crank baits on side planers at the very top end of Banks and Nic reeled in a dandy rainbow. Yea! We did it! Better yet, I shot a video of how we did it, and you can find it on the Dave Graybill YouTube channel. Look for the one that says Banks Lake Triple Fish Challenge. It should be at the top of the playlist.

It’s April and if you are an avid angler you need to renew your fishing license for the season. Fishing licenses are valid from April 1st to March 31st of the following year. If you aren’t in a hurry, and don’t plan to fish until the opening of the general lowland lakes season, you can get your license online. Just log into fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov. Your documents will arrive in about 10 days. I usually go to a local authorized dealer, as I want to get the two pole endorsement and a salmon punch card, which can’t be obtained online. I don’t get the Discovery Pass, as I buy the Washington State Parks Natural Investment sticker for my windshield. For an annual fee of $80. It is interchangeable between vehicles and covers my parking and launch fees at State Parks. I also buy Colville Tribal licenses and permits. These are only available online. Log onto cct.fnw.com and go to the Licenses and Permits page. You will need to have your driver’s license and vehicle license plate numbers to complete the transaction. This week’s photo is of Park and Blue lakes.

As many of you know, I am a big fan of fishing on the Colville Reservation lakes. The Colville Tribe plant fish in Rufus Woods, Buffalo, Omak, and Twin lakes every year, and some of them are real whoppers. The tribe has already planted over 16,000 trout in Rufus Woods and will release an additional 30,000, averaging two pounds, in April and May. Twin lakes will be planted with 7,500 trout averaging 1.5 pounds in April and get 600 rainbow that average 7 pounds the same month. Twin Lakes also offers terrific fishing for largemouth bass.Buffalo Lake will receive a plant of 2,000 rainbow averaging 1.5 pounds in April and 600 trout that will weigh 7 pounds in April and May. Buffalo Lake also has very good numbers of kokanee and a crawfish season from July 1st through September 15th, and they are of exceptional size. Rufus Woods Lake produces triploid rainbow that can exceed 20 pounds and the state record from Rufus is 29.6 pounds. The state record for Lahontan cutthroat is from Omak Lake. It weighed 18.4 pounds.

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