The wife and I spent a few days at Liar's Cove Resort at Conconully and had an awesome trip. The first thing I have to say is that the people at Liar's Cove are great and we will definitely be back. The next thing I have to say is that is a long drive from Oak Harbor, but it was worth it.

Got to the lake on the evening of the 30th and we both caught a fish right before dark with a super duper at the dock. We got a boat for a couple hours the next morning and started off trolling various spinners and spoons with a few hits but nothing stuck. We then anchored up and started catching little stockers with my wife using pink power eggs and I was using a small tube jig tipped with a power worm. We ended the morning keeping eight, mostly small stockers with one probable holdover that was about 13" and one triploid I think that was maybe a pound and a half. We fished the Liars Cove dock in the late afternoon and caught two more on eggs that we let go (hooked in the mouth) which rounded out our limit for the day.

I had been hearing that the smallmouth were hitting and were up tight to the bank but I was a little skeptical with the cold water, I decided to walk the shoreline near the dock anyway throwing a texas rigged tube and I am really glad I did. I ended up catching two smalliies, one about 11" and very healthy and another that was a fat little football that was somewhere between two and three pounds. I was really pumped because that was my biggest WA smallmouth to date (I have caught some bigger ones in Ohio but not having a boat has really made my smallmouth fishing tough here) and it fought great!!! I was out of time for the day but decided I would try the bass again from my float tube in the morning before we had to leave. I started fishing from my tube at about 7 am, still really cold out, and started working the shoreline with a tube again and after a few casts hooked into what I thought was a decent smallmouth but turned out to be a gorgeous holdover that had to be over two pounds. I was pretty surprised and have to say that it was my first trout on a 5" tube jig. That turned out to be the last fish I caught on the trip.

This was an awesome trip that neither of us will ever forget. We saw A LOT of deer, quail, and some breath taking landscapes. I really hope to get to Conconully again and recommend you all give it a try if you can. Don't forget about the smallmouth either as I wish I would have devoted a little more time to them.

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