On Friday, March 23rd my fishing partner Darin and I decided to head over
to the Potholes to do some weekend trout fishing. Heading over the pass we
were excited to get over to the water and get our lines wet. It was a great
trip over and we saw numerous herds of elk along the way by the sides of the
road. Once we arrived at the State Park boat launch we were met by two
friends from Yakima who would fish with us. We got on the water at 12:15 pm
and got to our fishing hole in no time. Everyone got rigged up and the
lines were in the water fast. We chatted to some of the boats around us and
NOBODY had caught a thing up to that point in the day. Not 20 minutes after
our arrival I had the first fish on of the day. Turned out to be a nice 2.5
lb. rainbow. Everyone wanted to know what we were using of course.
Chartreuse power bait and a nightcrawler (for those
who want to know). We sat around for another 3 hours in the bright hot
sun (take suntan lotion) before Darin hit the next fish. This time a 2
pounder. Same set up. the wind started to pick up around 4:00 pm but we
decided to stick it out. No more fish for the rest of the day. We woke up
early Saturday and hit the water before first light. Darin caught another
2 lb rainbow right off the bat. By that time we had four other friends in
two boats who showed up around 7:00 am. Jon got another fish 20 minutes
later, then his partner Steve pulled in one 10 minutes after that. Started
to look like a real good day!!! We still hadn't seen anyone else boat a
any other fish yet. It slowed fight down for the next three hours and we
decided to try another spot. We left to try trolling some Hot Lips 1/4
oz. plugs but nothing. Darin and I returned an hour later to find friends
Lance
and Jeff with 4 more fish in their boat in 1 hour! Jeff had a nice 4 lb.
rainbow, as well as catching the other three. Poor Lance, not one fish yet.
We stuck it out for the remainder of the day but no more fish to be caught.
That night, Saturday the 24th, a big thunderstorm came in and gave us a
fantastic lightning show. Then the rain hit, and it started pouring all
through the night. We woke up and decided not to go out and get soaked so
we headed home. All in all we did fairly good as a group, compared to all
the other boats. We did see one other fish caught that could have weighed
over 5 lbs. Can't wait to get back! It should start to heat up in the
coming weeks over there!

---