Jim K: Roosevelt - 6/5

Non-Members

I took my son Seth back to the North end of Lake Roosevelt again this Friday for a “finishing his school work early” reward.  We returned to just below the Little Dalles where we were last week.  We repeated our pattern of drifting with Jigs in the big eddy.  We again finished our day with two limits, culled out a few dozen others.  Jigs tipped with worms.  No color preference.

For SWC Members:

Seth and I began our trip again from Kettle Falls launch.  On our way past China Bend, I noted a handful of empty boat trailers in the parking lot.  Looks like this ramp is back in use… didn’t get close enough see how far from the end of the ramp the water level is.

Today, we fished two eddies on our way to the Little Dalles, but struck out both times.  Once at the Little Dalles, we repeated last week’s success by threading live crawlers onto jigs.  I was using a fire tiger color, and Seth a black.  Neither color out performed the other.  After culling out our first limit, Seth got antsy and wanted a change up.  We headed up through the Dalles and fished two eddies further upstream, and struck out in both locations.  I was vertical jigging and pitching jigs to cover distance, and Seth was working shoreline breaks with a crank bait.  No bites in either location!  We returned to below the Little Dalles and finished our 2nd limit in about another hour and a half.

One thing I noticed was that our fish were noticeably larger than last week. We had 8 fish that were 19”-20”.  With several boats the small area today, I had a chance to talk more to fishermen.  One guy was pitching blade baits up current in the eddy.  I witnessed him catch probably more fish than Seth and I were, but he was surprised when I mentioned how many bigger fish we were catching than last weekend.  I feel we had larger average size fish for two reasons:  We were drifting with the current, and I was focusing on keeping a vertical line for Seth to more easily manage the conditions… We had three of the larger walleye hooked outside of the mouth.. I feel the larger fish are more finicky than the smaller ones, and a natural drift was needed.  2nd, we caught all of our bigger walleye on the edges of the hump in the eddy.  By drifting, we repeatedly went over this edge… the blade bait fisherman was not as he was anchor locked more often over the top of the hump.