My wife's sister Karen was visiting from Anaconda, Montana, so we planned a trip to Buffalo Lake to show her what trout fishing in Eastern Washington can be like.

We arrived in the afternoon, launched at the resort there and proceeded through the channel to the first bay on the right. We caught a bunch of rainbow, most of which were 16 inches, one carryover of 18 inches, and one triploid that must have weighed 5 pounds.

We fished again the next morning in heavy wind for a couple of hours and landed three carryover rainbow to 20 inches, and lost three nice ones, too.

We were trolling Rapalas, converted to single barbless hooks and a single barbless Apex. I put the Apex on my downrigger and put it down from 10 to 17 feet. I found I got the best action at 10 feet, so you don't have to be deep to get the trout here.

Mike Hall, the manager of Buffalo Lake Resort said that 2,500 rainbow have been planted recently. That explained all the very fat 16-inchers we got. Buffalo is on the Colville Reservation and requires a Tribal Permit, that can be purchased at the resort