Greg: Roosevelt - 4/13/23

My first open water trip of the season was Thursday. I launched out of Seven Bays with a lake elevation on Roosevelt of 1240 feet. Porcupine and Ft Spokane were high and dry. There were only 6 boat trailers in the parking lot, and I saw very few anglers fishing. The bite was slow and finding keeper sized walleyes was difficult for me. I ended the day catching 14 walleyes, but only 3 were worth keeping (15, 16, and 18 inches). The rest of the fish I caught were in the 10 to 12 inch range. The water temperature in the Spokane Arm was as high as 47 degrees and stained. Above Porcupine Bay, visibility was 2 feet or less. On the main lake, the water temperature was 42 degrees with water clarity of 6 feet or more. Air temp was about 50 degrees in the afternoon with partly cloudy skies and a 10 mph wind from the southwest.

More info for club members: I ran up as far as the Weeping Wall before the water depth was only 18 feet in the main channel. The water was quite stained and running swiftly. I tried casting blade baits and jigs into current seams and slack water with no success. I also tried trolling spinner rigs along edges and through the chunky rock channel with no bites. As I worked down river, I picked up my first couple of dinks in the upper part of the Narrows on chartreuse Smile blade rigs with a half a crawler in 25 feet. There were a couple other boats trolling in the Narrows, but they didn’t stick around long. I tried a couple spots near Blue Creek and Porcupine. I got 5 dinks there on chartreuse Smile blades in 25 to 35 feet, and also got one on a black and green blade bait. A few other spots in the Arm were unproductive, so I ended the day on the main lake on the Ferry county side of the Columbia across from mouth of the Spokane. The water was clear, and I marked good numbers of fish in 50 feet. I caught 7 or 8 walleyes (including the 3 fish that I kept) in about an hour on chartuese and silver Smile blades before the bite ended. The wind is cold on the main lake, so I went home.