Ken L and Greg K: Snake River - 7/12

Ken has wanted to go to the Snake River for a couple of years. We finally made the day trip on Wednesday. Fishing was pretty good. We caught 13 walleyes ranging from 15 inches to 22.5 inches. Most of the walleyes were between 16 and 17 inches, but we did catch a 19, 20, 21, and 22.5. All of the walleyes were thick and pulled hard. We also caught and released about 10 perch and several smallmouth bass. The water temperature was 69 degrees. There was a good deal of current with 3 gates at Little Goose dam open and flowing. Air temperature reached the low 90s in the afternoon. A 10 to 15 mph wind helped us from getting too hot, but did make boat control a challenge at times.

More info for club members: We launched at Lyons Ferry and motored about 7 miles downstream (west). We found a small piece of shoreline with a rocky shelf near scattered weeds. We caught 7 walleyes and numerous small perch in 15 to 30 feet of water. An orange smile blade with orange beads/float caught most of the fish. We tried a couple other spots below Lyons Ferry pulling smile blades with no luck. With our 3 dozen nightcrawlers exhausted, we switched to crankbaits and motored all the way to Texas Rapids campground. We trolled deep diving cranks in 20 to 25 feet along rocky shorelines between Texas Rapids and Little Goose Dam. We picked up 5 walleyes in less than 2 hours including a 20 and 22.5 incher. A Purpledescent Rapala Taildancer caught 4 walleyes and a chrome/black Rapala Troll-To 20 Minnow caught 1 fish. All told 8 walleyes were caught on crawlers in 5 hours of fishing and 5 walleyes came on crankbaits in less than 2 hours. Every walleye that we caught was relating to a rocky drop-off.