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I was able to talk my wife into hitting Rufus Woods with me today for her first time. Water temp 37 degrees. Air temp 60+ & "NO" wind. The water was like glass. Reports from several different fishermen before we launched sounded terrible. “NO Fish today” is what I heard over & over. We launched anyway from the corps boat launch at about 11:00 and started trolling the North shore. We used everything in my tackle box and had no hookups. I trolled past blufin loui and was able to give him a shout out. Loui stated he wasn’t catching many fish ether. I felt bad not stopping for a longer conversation but I had fish on my mind and I’m sure he understands. Louis, I’m sure we’ll hookup at the launch someday and swap some stories. We trolled spoons, spinners, jigs, B-2 squids, flat fish and several colors of woolly buggers behind a wiggle fin and couldn’t get the fish to even look at what we were offering. I talked to a couple of guys that were trolling about half way between well #2 and well #3 that said the only thing that they had caught was a busted engine. They planned on using a small 12V transom mount electric to make it the several miles back to the launch until I explained to them that it was several miles. I told them that if they were still on the water after we had finished fishing for the day that we would give them a tow. We made it to the flats around well #3 and I broke out my fly rod and cast to the shore using my New & Improved Trout Pellet Fly. First cast and I had a hookup. I handed my fly rod to my wife (Newbie Fly Fisher Woman) and taught her how to do a roll cast. First good cast and she had a hookup. We spent the next couple of hours practicing with the fly rod catching and releasing several triploids, all smaller that two pounds. The two that we kept were caught by my wife and we kept them because they were foul hooked. Other wise they would have also been released. All of the fish we caught today were swimming in less than five feet of water. On the way back to the launch I saw that the guys with the brake down had made it all the way to well #2 so I offered them a tow which they gladly accepted. We dropped the broke down boat and as I would find out later two very much unprepared fishermen back at the state park boat launch. We were off the water at about 4:00. A word to the wise: Rufus Woods is a very big and sometimes dangerous body of water. Be prepared and think ahead. Let someone know where you are planning to fish and when you plan on returning home. Cell phones don’t have much reception past well #1. Please think ahead and plan for your trip. BE SAFE!!!

Rozman

4/5/2009 9:41:00 PM

Nice report, thanks.

blufin loui

4/6/2009 6:12:00 AM

Way to go BigD, that was the second boat I saw being "towed" back to the launch on Sunday. Kudos for getting the wife on some fish with the fly rod, it does make a favorable impression, and hopefully she will be ready to give it another go soon, maybe even a trip up to the pens when the weather stabilizes.
Go prepared and stay Safe

RobertW

4/6/2009 9:08:00 AM

Hey I have been reading report after report on Rufus. I was wandering if it is possible to fish any of that area with a pontoon boat? Is there road access at all that I could get close enough to the water. From a lot of the reports it sounds like your not to far out from the bank. Any help to narrow down the area would be great. I'd love to make the trip over there and give it a try. I'm trying to imagine what that trout pettet fly looks like that you guys are talking about???? Are you fishing that with an intermediate line or a full sink?? I know a lot of questions, this fishery really has got me interested!!

Thanks, RobertW

Big D

4/6/2009 10:20:00 AM

Hey RobertW, I'll try to answer your questions short & sweet. 1) Yes, you can fish the river/lake from a pontoon boat. Understand that Rufus Woods is actually the Columbia River backed up behind Chief Joseph Dam and water flows, depths and speeds can change rapidly. SAFETY FIRST 2) You can access the river from several areas behind Chief Joseph Dam. There's a boat launch at the state park on the North side of the river/lake and the Corps of Engineers has built and maintains a wonderful boat launch and fishing area on the south shore behind Chief Jo Dam. The road on the south shore runs I would guess 5 or 6 miles along the river/lake bank with lots of areas to launch a pontoon boat from. 3) I enjoy trolling along the bank because fishing is not the only attraction. Yesterday we saw several ducks, geese, blue herons, eagles both bald & golden, several different kinds of hawks and my wife watched several deer through her binoculars. On a funny side note I had the opportunity to explain to my wife how I knew that those two geese over there were not fighting. The dead giveaway was when one of them laid back and had a cigarette and the other just turned over and went to sleep. I’ve been fly fishing with a floating line on my fly rod because it’s easier for me to teach my wife that way. The flies are weighted so they sink very slowly just off of the leader. (Kind of like an actual trout pellet) I suppose you could use a full sinking line and do just fine. Blufin loui rigged the fly up Carolina style last week on a spinning rod and was able to pull several fish out of the weeds with it. I’ve tied up a bunch of extra Trout Pellet Flies and have been selling them to make a little extra money for fishing. If you or anyone else are interested in a fly purchase or would just like the recipe with a photo, you can email me at darrendirks@msn.com

FredWeiser

4/6/2009 7:41:00 PM

Big D:
Saw you towing that guy back just above the State Park yesterday - good work. Had I realized it was you I would have said hello. I had my first opportunity to try your pellet fly that day, but didn't have any luck. As you say, we trolled the entire tackle box up and down the lake with little luck. Thanks as usual for the great report-

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