I got a chance to go toss a line with my good friend and fishing Buddy Mark Blakely of Outlook last Friday. We left Sunnyside headed East despite the gale force winds that were blowing in hopes that we could find some calmer water in the basin. mark was itching at the chance to fish with me again after our last foray to the I 82 ponds in my boat. We had to pass up a couple of locations on the way due to whitecaps but found that Billy Clap Lake was not as affected as some of the other lakes and we put in to try our luck for smallmouth Bass. I had just told Mark about the potential size of the huge rainbow trout in this lake when Mark's rod bent over double with a solid strike. I saw the flash of silver and knew Mark had hooked a bruiser sized rainbow trout! After an extended fight I scooped up a solid 25" 5 pound plus trout for my excited friend. Our primary pattern was tossing 3" grubs and my 3" Smallie Dobber Sculpin jigs on 1/16th oz. leadheads along vertical basalt rock walls, keying on shaded ledges. My first smallie went nearly 3 pounds and my fourth fish was over 4! The odd thing was the lack "dink" smallies less than 10" that used to be the norm for this lake. All the fish that I caught were coughing up rather large crawfish and Mark's trout had a huge crawdad in it's stomach when he cleaned it. We stuck with watermelon and smoke pepper flake plastics and every hit came on the drop just after the cast. I hope to get back up there after walleyes in the next couple of weeks. Tight lines brothers. The Jigster

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