I got up at 3am and hit road by 4am...long drive from Marysville to Lake Lenore. Arrived after daylight and got in water around 8am...wind was howling in Ephrata when I stopped for gas...not good...weather.com had 7-9mph winds then calmer in afternoon...put in a south end by bathroom before you go up hill heading north out of soap lake...fished Lenore a lot in college late 80's and early 90's and usually got 5-8 fish in 15"+ range...but they had poaching incident Google it April 2013 caught guys with nets and over 240 fish...so last time I was there April 2014 got no bites and a skunk. So didn't have great expectations...bought a crocodile lure in green and mepps spinner size #3 in red/white and new battery so I can use my motor again and no more rowing...so of course I left new battery covers at home (along with two nuts to attach the trolling motor). Good thing I had electrical tape in the tackle box. It worked and had to reapply...but beats rowing as I had two foot rollers and had to stop and beach my small boat to get the water out. Well, fishing was slow tried casting and drifting fighting northern wind all morning and rollers...trolled some nothing.

Decided to head between island and cliff further south to get calmer water...got nothing there either but wind and waves were better...saw one other boat with two people didn't see them catching anything either...well went down to far end and found Rocky bottom and my first trip ever in 1985 got 24" by banking the boat wading from shore and casting over the the rocks. Got him on first cast big roll and beat my biggest trout by 14" at that time. Remember as a kid stocked trout we're 6-8".


Today zip...so started trolling further out and on speed 4 and heading for launch...sure enough got a hit! He hit my black dare devil spoon from the 90's hard And surfaced twice...I cut the motor and kept tension on him...I already loosened both drags to give line on both reels. He came to boat and didn't freak out when he saw it...got him in net and hauled him in...got a photo and where's the tape measure...20"! He was in good shape unhooked him and let him go in net..this was at 12:30pm. Wind died got calm as glass and fished another two hours...no more hits. Tough day just one hit...used to catch 5-8 fish and get 8-10 hits barbless hooks you tend to loose one or two...glad it was sunny.

James

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