Wed., March 9

The first annual Trout Derby held by Quincy Valley Tourism came

off in fine style on Saturday, March 5th. The weather turned out to

be bright and clear and the turnout for the tagged trout event was

excellent.

Wed., March 9

The first annual Trout Derby held by Quincy Valley Tourism came off in fine style on Saturday, March 5th. The weather turned out to be bright and clear and the turnout for the tagged trout event was excellent. There were a total of 537 total anglers registered for the adult and youth divisions. Fishing in the derby was restricted to Burke Lake, due to ice cover on Quincy Lake. There was just one tagged trout landed, by Kellie Shultz of Everett, who has been coming to fish the opening weekend at Burke for 20 years. She was awarded a fat envelope full of prizes, including a $100 in cash, until it is determined if her fish was wearing a cash-award tag. Jim Caroll won big-fish honors in the adult division, and a Traeger barbeque with his 6-pound, 2,2-ounce rainbow. Cruz Villegas won the youth division big fish prize. Oscar Trevino won the adult total weight award with 12.53 pounds of rainbow in his five-fish limit, and the youngster with the heaviest stringer was Nick DeLine with 5.08 pounds. The volunteer crew from Quincy Valley Tourism did a great job taking care of the derby participants, and everyone is looking forward to another tagged trout derby next year.

Fri., March 11

The roller coaster ride of cold snowy weather to sunny and warm is making things interesting for anglers here in Central Washington, and there are some great fishing opportunities when the weather does cooperate. Fishing for big rainbow trout continues to be very good on Lake Roosevelt. There are some big kokanee being taken, too, and there are some early-season walleye being landed as well. Rufus Woods is another water that is attracting a lot of attention in this cold, late spring we're having. Not only are there very good numbers of triploids being taken for this time of year, there are some whoppers being reported, like the 22-pounder I heard that came from the upper net pens. This could be an excellent end of the season run for steelhead anglers on our local rivers. All of them remain open, if we don't get hit with heavy runoff after the recent snowstorms. Fishing has really picked up on the Wenatchee River and the Methow should be producing good catches, too. There are fish throughout both of these systems. The Wenatchee is plenty high enough for floating, and pulling plugs would be a great tactic for these aggressive steelhead. I'm not done on the upper Columbia yet either.