Fishing the Tucannon

Went fishing today looking for some new fishing spots and being as it was an very nice day I could not let it go to waste. I drove up to the Tucannon river north of Walla Walla and found some real nice spots. 

Started my fishing over at Rainbow Lake. There were about 10 or so other people fishing the lake so I spent the first 10 minuets or so walking around to see how everyone was fairing. Most of them were drowning worms with a few using power bait or other scented dough bait. In the time I spent walking around I did not see a single person hook a fish. I had read that this was supposed to be a good hole and was a bit suppressed. Well I got out my 3wt and strung up a elk hair caddis and took a trail that put me on the spit of land that ran out into the middle of the lake. I am not sure what I was doing right but I was able to pull out about 15 or so squaw fish and a couple bow's. Most of it was sight fishing and being as this was stocked fish it did not seem too hard.

Well running on a high from that I explored several of the other lakes along the river that had also been stocked. The one thing that caught my attention was the number of fish that had what looked like either scars or fungus growing on them. I am not sure how contagious this might be or if it is harmful to humans... there were a number of others fishing these lakes as well and I am sure many of them were catching the fish for the campfire. Which sounds mighty good right now... but anyway I caught several more bow's and it got to be more fun when they did not hook them selves and just grabbed the fly than when they did as most of them were in the 9 to 11 inch range and it was more hassle getting them off the hook and back in the water. 

Well I kept fishing more so that I have an excuse to walk along the river and it is quite a beautiful river. Right now with the extended rain and snow we got this winter and spring the river is running much higher than usual however just having moved from the west side of the state where all the rivers I am used to fishing are in general much larger it did not seem as if this was running that high... its all relative I guess. Well the last fish of the day was a treat. It was not the biggest or anything fancy, just another rainbow trout about 9 inches long but I didn't actually hook it. Well at least the hook was not in the fish, rather I hooked what was the end of another hook that had a pre-tied leader that the fish had gut hooked its self with.