Hot Mid-July weather has warmed up surface water temperatures at Potholes Reservoir to 80F and the water elevation currently sits at 1,040 Ft., roughly 7 feet below full pool. To me this means two things; enjoyable summer swimming on the sand dunes or the Mardon Resort Beach, and especially topwater bass fishing in the evening after work. Even with the gully washing rain from the recent string of thunderstorms, and the sustained damage to farmers from the harsh weather, Potholes Reservoir continues to drop at a rapid pace seeing a 1-2 foot drop per week now. This rapidly creates more beach area here at the resort, exposes more sand dunes, and ramps up the action for bass fishing!

Rainbow Trout continue to provide consistent action on the reservoir. Trolling Rapala Shad Raps, Luhr-Jensen Needlefish, and nightcrawler spinners are clearly the tactics of choice to tackle these hard charging rainbows. This by far is the best Rainbow Trout season on the lake in recent years, with many fish in the 4-7lb. being caught by anglers of all skill levels. The MarDon fish cleaning station has been seeing some jumbo Trout, nice Walleye, and a few Bluegill and Crappie from off the Mardon Resort Marina.

Soda Lake continues to produce excellent Walleye fishing this past week, with fish up to 7lbs. being reported. It is frighteningly vacant for such a quality fishing lake!

The MarDon Dock is producing good Bluegill & Crappie fishing, along with the occasional jumbo Trout, Bass, or Catfish.

On Saturday the Central Washington Fisheries advisory committee will present the "Sammy Bash" Golf tournament at the Potholes Golf Course. This fundraiser is used to generate funds to buy the building components for the underwater habitat boxes. The end result will be placed in Potholes Reservoir. At low water, much of Potholes bottom looks like a "moon-scape". This leaves juvenile fish with absolutely no cover or protection from larger fish species. The 1,532 habitat boxes we have already planted in the lake provide sanctuaries for millions of juvenile fish across all species. Currently the reservoir has a dis-proportionate predator/prey relationship and every year more Habitat Boxes are being dropped by the CWFAC to increase the survival rates for the future of this amazing fishery. For more information visit, www.CWFAC.org