Info to help you find your way around our lakes
Here’s a free copy (OK, it’s digital, but still…) of our guide to fishing Banks Lake in early spring.
It’s full of great tips for anglers, even those foolish enough to pass up on the opportunity to get into this weekend’s (April 6-7, 2013) “Are You Tough Enough — Triple Fish Challenge” fishing derby.
Check it out here:
To fish our upcoming derby?
You’re probably not a real good angler, so just move on. Nothing to see here.
Unless you actually are tough enough for the local chamber of commerce sponsored triple challenge coming up in April.
You read that right: TRIPLE challenge. Meaning you have to catch bass, walleye and rainbow, all in one event, in the first event of the year in eastern Washington.
Someone just reminded me of this piece on the Grand Coulee Dam area, produced by KXLY TV for their Explorer TV series, in which I was interviewed.
They did a great job of cutting in quick and useful information, and it’s worth a few minutes of your time.
One thing I forgot to mention (one of those “I wish I had said” moments) is that the drive through here on SR 155 is actually the heart of a National Scenic Byway called The Coulee Corridor.
This KXLY video is only offered in Adobe Flash, so it may not play if you’re using a mobile device.
Our latest printed issue of the Visitors’ Guide is at the printers’, but in this day and age, why wait?
Take a look right now by clicking on the image below to open it up in your browser (Flash required, sorry; so here’s a link for iPhone or iPad access. It’s limited.)
“The most beautiful place in the world.”
That’s the way a man from the western part of Washington state last weekend described to me the place where I live. The avid bass fisherman said that twice a year, he makes his pilgrimage to Coulee Playland to go bass fishing. And he’s so “ansty” to get going, he can’t wait until Friday mornging to leave.
Instead, my new acquaintance, met at a newspaper industry conference in Everett, said he gets home from work Thursday evening, packs up and heads to the Grand Coulee. He drives through the night, launches his boat at first light, fishes all morning, then comes back and sets up his campsite.
“My wife never could understand why I would get so antsy to leave,” he told me, “until she came along. … Now she understands.”
I asked if he planned to fish Banks Lake while it was drawn down this winter. He said he hoped to make it over, if for no other reason than to see and map the underlying structure of the lake now exposed because of the drawdown of the lake for maintenance purposes, a very rare event.
Bass angling friends, he said, report that fishing has been good during the drawdown, but the regular winter strategies are out the window. The fish are confused and sometimes huddle together, their favorite places now high and dry.
Two weekends ago, organizers of an annual bass tournament at Coulee Playland were glad they decided not to cancel their event. They had a blast in the lowered lake with more concentrated fishing, according to Coulee Playland’s Hal Rauch.
A confession: I am not a fisherman, but I still think this is the most beautiful place in the world.