Nice report, I'm planning on going there after the 25th Dec--before the 1st. Jan,
I fish there every year, your report gives me enough information to know I should
fair pretty well.

Without tipping my hand on Rock, fish where the food is. Enough said, and maybe, maybe I'll see you on the 29th.

lol, I havent learned how to read bait fish on the fish finder yet or where to even look for them. I have to say its fun trying and just part of the fishing experiance.
We will be in a 17' fiberform ski boat, converted to a fishing boat, you cant miss it, new 10 horse tohatsu on the back.

I'm with you! I haven't figured out the lake either, I just think there's an awful lot of fish in it. I'm going to try to make it before the end of the year myself. If I'm there, you'll see an 18' Hewescraft Sportsman. Feel free to flag me down. Tom

Thanks Tom, If we see each other we can swamp whats working or not.

Glad to hear you had some good fishing, Tom. Yes, Rock is an outstanding fishery for a few species. I fish Rock with success, mostly for trout, about 30 times a year. Tomorrow will make day 32 for 2007. My close proximity in Cheney allows me to indulge my obsession with big browns. Despite the BS you hear around the boat launch about limits of huge browns, most of which should be released anyway since it really is a trophy fishery and since big browns are really old fish, Rock's browns are often lockjawed and hard to catch. The smaller fish you describe, the ones that are a year away from being spawners (they're skinny and 12-14 inches), if left in the lake, grow to immense proportions. There are far more rainbows than browns, and the rainbows are much meatier than the small browns.

Having fished the lake a lot over the past few weeks, I know that most of the rainbows and smaller browns are holding in their usual locations, slightly deeper than normal, ranging from 40-15 feet. The large browns, which I note are absent from your catch, are still bunched up from the spawn in their typical locations, but should be dispersing soon; they probably are, in fact. The large browns, especially the really large ones, will be much more apt to be found shallow in good ambush spots throughout the winter. I can speak from experience here, having caught many 20-plus inch browns on large stremers over the years. The larger rainbows (16-21 inches in my experience) are also more apt to be found shallow, on or near feeding flats. Of course, you'll sometimes pick up a really nice fish that is suspended over deep water.

The downrigger can be a help on some days this time of year, especially for the smaller fish (small fish in Rock are big fish in many other lakes), but, in winter, bigger fish will be caught in shallower water by people using bait, flies, and lures fished on mono or two colors or fewer of leader line with a long leader--usually.

Good luck on the water.

Thanks for the tips! It's going to be a lot of fun learning to fish this lake.

Hey sounds great! I love Rock...and if you see me on the water, I will be in 4 foot brown waders, feel free to wave me down HAHA.