Rufus Woods trout game for almost any lure
FISHING -- While many river anglers are in a deep funk over the unusually high water, fishermen focused on Lake Rufus Woods been coming home with huge smiles -- and even bigger fish -- for several weeks.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of fish released from commercial net pens have been feeding a fantastic fishery in the reservoir downstream from Grand Coulee Dam.
I've been asking successful anglers to report their top methods, and the answers have been interesting in that there's been no single way to catch the notoriously portly fish. Almost every reasonable presentation seems to have been working. Here are two examples.
- "My stepson says throw spinners or cranks right up against the shore," said Al Liere, S-R fishing report columnist. "Don't try to anchor -- just drift, but concentrate on the larger bays. If you don't mind keeping your first two, a white mini-squid (small) with double hooks baited with 'crawler and a slinky-type sinker drug along the bottom will get hits. My friend, Al Rettman echoes Evan's report -- small plugs cast or trolled shallow."
- Dale Davis went Sunday and had a glowing report. I asked him how they fished:
"Bouncing weighted jigs on the bottom with power bait. With anise scent on the plug. We drifted around the pins. There were six of us that went and we limited out in an hour. Super fantastic fish. I attached a picture of them, pay attention to the pop can in the middle to see how big these suckers were. Couldn't have asked for a better day."
