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Rock Lake Report
Whitman County, WA

Details

02/17/2017
51° - 55°
Trolling
Rainbow Trout
Pink
Mostly Sunny
Noon
02/17/2017
3
1225

Had to take advantage of the nice weather for the first fishing since November. Starter battery was dead so used the trolling motor and trolled up about 1/3 then back to the launch, in at about noon and off the water by 3:30. Pretty decent current at the "launch" that was a new experience. Probably makes sense to launch further to the right to avoid the current and getting swept into the brush and rocks downstream from the launch. Despite the high water, there wasn't a lot of debris in the water and visibility was fair. Some logs floating here and there but since there was only light chop on the water they were pretty obvious and since I was trolling there was no danger. Must have been about a dozen rigs in the parking area. We got 7 decent rainbows and steelhead in the 17 inch range, and about 5-6 recent planters. There were definitely some dead periods and the bite was off compared with the fall. The steelhead seemed to be really skinny, the rainbows were in pretty good shape. Changed setups a lot. Right off the bat got two on leadcore with a chartreuse rapala, then that rod was silent. Got a few more on mono with diving plugs and couple on a surface plug. Eventually, the best producer was a fluorescent pink Old Goat Lure on 2 colors of leadcore, which got 5 (only 1 of which was a dink). So I feel like that setup paid off today.


Comments

oldgoatlures
2/18/2017 8:25:00 AM
RWL: Thanks for taking the time to fish the OG1! (Which size were you fishing?)

--Donn
rwl
2/18/2017 9:38:00 AM
Hi Donn, not 100% sure it is probably the about 2 3/4 inches
oldgoatlures
2/18/2017 10:07:00 AM
Got it. Thanks! (We tried the fluorescent pink 2.8" on Tuesday; but, it kept triggering the small 'bows. Had better success with the orange lures that day. But, we've seen this before on Rock where the "hot" color will vary from day to day.)
rwl
2/18/2017 10:35:00 AM
It was getting the larger fish, which was great. Often think it can depend on what else is trolled on the other rods, like maybe one rig draws the aggressive small fish, and the other one works better on the more educated fish.
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Upper Columbia Guide Service

Phone: (509) 470-9255