Monday, March 25

If you don't have your new fishing license time is running out. You need to have your new one on April 1st.

If you plan to fish for salmon and steelhead don't forget to ask for your salmon and steelhead endorsement.

You'll want to have your new license to fish the many lakes that open in Columbia Basin Wildlife Refuge south of Moses Lake on the first of April. These lakes offer terrific trout fishing, and some are known for excellent spiny ray fishing, too.

There is very good trout fishing available right now on several of our year-round lakes, like Roses near Manson, Potholes Reservoir and Banks Lake.

You should also be getting your ticket for the new derby that will be held on Banks Lake on April 6th and 7th. The Triple Fish Challenge will give anglers a chance to compete for biggest fish in three categories; rainbow, walleye and smallmouth bass.

The first prize is an Achilles inflatable boat and motor and there will cash and tackle prizes awarded to biggest fish and stringer each day as well. This derby is a great idea and should be a lot of fun.

Learn all about it by going to my web site, clicking on the Pepsi logo and looking through the calendar for April.

Wednesday, March 27

I got back up to Lake Chelan to get after the kokanee again, and this was my best trip so far. There were a lot of boats launching at Mill Bay and big packs of them off Rocky Point when we made our way down lake.

We started off near Peterson's and a very slow start. We moved further out toward the middle of the lake and things changed.

All of a sudden our rods started going off in quick succession. We got doubles, triples, and even at one point had all four rods go off and we landed all four of them.

I had one fish one that took a couple of nice runs before breaking my 13-pound leader! We had nine fish in the boat in no time. Then the bite died, as it often does when fishing for kokanee. We trolled and trolled without success for about 40 minutes with nothing, and then it came back on.

We ended up with 16 fish ranging in size from 12 to 17 inches, and got most of them at 90 feet.

Don't forget to buy your new license before April 1st. You'll need it for the "April Fools" opener in the Columbia Basin and to fish in the new Triple Fish Challenge Derby at Banks Lake April 6th and 7th.

Friday, March 29

The hot kokanee fishing is still going on at Lake Chelan, but trout anglers will be shifting their attention to the Columbia Basin soon as a whole bunch of lakes open to fishing April 1st.

Right now there are a few year-round lakes that are producing excellent catches of rainbow.

Upper Goose, Blythe and Corral are all providing anglers with good catches of rainbow, and there are dandies mixed in on their stringers. The best of the three is Upper Goose with consistent limit catches of 14- to 18- inch rainbow.

Fishing isn't quit as hot at Blythe and Corral but there has been some rainbow weighing up to 5 and 6 pounds taken from these lakes.

Make getting your new license a goal this weekend. You do not want to have to interrupt your first fishing trip of the year to stop and buy one.

After the April 1st opener the next item on your calendar should be the Triple Fish Challenge Derby at Banks Lake on April 6th and 7th.

Go to web site at FishingMagician.com, click on the Pepsi logo, follow the links and learn all about it.