Monster Fish Exist, But Few End Up On Hook

After a slow start to the fishing season Saturday, Ed Rehfeld of Spokane could do no wrong.

“I struck out when I started at midnight,” he said from his campsite at Klink’s Williams Lake Resort. “I was freezing so I went back and crawled into my sleeping bag.”

Later, his buddy rushed to the tent to show off a lunker rainbow big enough to lure Rehfeld back to the dock.

“I made one cast and hooked this monster,” he said, holding 10 pounds, 10 ounces of proof that he wasn’t taking angler’s license.

“I tried to go back to bed after catching this, but it was too cold to sleep, so I was out fishing again at 4:30,” he said. Within a few casts, he added an 8-pounder and a 5-pounder to his stringer, while others on the dock suffered the maddening paradox of opening-day luck.

“Where’s the guy who caught caught all the big fish?” said a man on the dock later Saturday morning.

“Over in the campground,” scowled a woman who had only one small trout for hours of effort. “Look for the guy with the big grin on his face.”

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Department has stocked about 14 million trout of various sizes in 4,500 lowland lakes and reservoirs for anglers to catch this year. A larger proportion of trophy-size trout - up to 24 inches - were stocked this season.

While many of the waters have already been open to fishing, most of the state’s best trout lakes open the last Saturday in April.

Opening day is a ritual of launching boats without drain plugs in the transom and begging for jumper cables in the boat launch parking lot after leaving the vehicle lights on all morning.

It might be the only day of the year when mom doesn’t flinch as the kids reach into the potato chip bag after putting a trout on the stringer and baiting a hook with a nightcrawler.

Most of Idaho’s lowland lakes are open year-round. However, Saturday’s start of the Kamloops and Kokanee Spring Fishing Derby on Lake Pend Oreille brought out a flotilla of boats.

Cold morning temperatures may have contributed to a lighter than normal early turnout in Eastern Washington.

Dewey Simpson of Ritzville, who’s been orchestrating boat launching at Fishtrap Lake Resort for nine years, said virtually everybody was catching trout. “But some paid the price,” he said.

Simpson was surprised how long some of the midnight starters stayed on the dock in freezing temperatures just for the bragging rights of catching their limit before dawn.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been that fish hungry,” he laughed.

Until the late morning sun bore down on the region, a cup of hot coffee caught at least as much interest on a dock than a cup of active hellgrammites.

Jeff Ropp of Spokane didn’t let a busy Saturday family schedule interfere with his opening-day tradition.

From the cliffs near the Fishtrap resort just before dawn, he cast a baited hook and hoisted foot-long trout after trout up the 20 feet from the water to his ledge.

“I’ve got to be home by 9:30,” he said. “Doesn’t look like that will be a problem.”

Browns and brook trout at Fish Lake were in the 17-inch range for those who could catch them.

“I checked stomach contents on some of the brook trout and they were stuffed with snails,” said Al Scholz, an Eastern Washington University fisheries professor who was taking a creel census at the launch. “I think that’s why the fishing is so slow. They were feeding on the bottom.”

Two women went home much earlier than expected after capsizing their canoe while reeling in a trout about 8 a.m. at Badger lake. Luckily, another boat was there quickly to rescue them from the deadly cold water.

A few anglers at the Badger Lake boat launch said they were surprised at the private mobile homes parked where the Badger Lake Resort once operated.

When told the resort had closed in 1997, one man said, “I thought I got out here every year on opening day, but I guess I don’t.”

Anglers who fished Amber Lake, a selective fishery, averaged catching and releasing nearly seven fish apiece.

Good catches of fish also were reported at many lakes in northeastern Washington, especially in Stevens County, where Cedar, Deep and Starvation lakes outperformed the Spokane County waters. Rainbows, kokanee and a 15-pound mackinaw were taken at Loon Lake.

Cormorants in the sky over Williams Lake are among the many insidious changes on the region’s fishing scene.

“They’re just starting to get this far inland from the coast,” said Brad McHenry of Bunker’s Resort. “They really eat the fish.”

The long-time resort operator wondered if fish-eating birds will some day outnumber anglers.

“We used to have opening-day waiting lines for 125 rental boats and barges,” he said. “Now we’re down to 12 boats.” And on a cold morning, some of them were vacant at the dock.

“People have a lot of other distractions these days,” said one angler at Amber Lake. “That suits me just fine. Thins out the crowd.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: Best fishing

Following are the region’s top fishing lakes as recorded by Washington Fish and Wildlife Department surveys on Saturday. Chart shows average length in inches and average catch per angler.

Lake Length Ratio

Cedar 12 4.9

Deep 10.5 4.8

Starvation 11.5 4.5

Fishtrap 11.4 4.3

Ellen 10 3.8