On my recent trip to Tri-Cities I took the road through Mattawa, and I noticed construction going on just past where you cross over Crab Creek. What is going on here are improvements to what is known as the Sand Hollow camping area. Grant County PUD is creating 30 semi-private camping areas, 10 walk-camp sites, four double vault toilets and a swimming area. This has been a popular rough camping area for years and these improvements will be very welcome. The construction should be completed in May of this year. Also due to be completed at about the same time is the improvements to the Frenchman Coulee Recreation Area. This is even more extensive. To get all the details you can visit the Grant County PUD web site at
www.grantpud.org. I also wanted to let fans of fishing at Rufus Woods that the Colville tribe recently released an additional 5,500 triploid rainbow into the reservoir. The fish weighed between 1.5 and 2 pounds when released. About 25 percent of the fish were tagged and the tribe asked anglers to call the number on the tags and report some details about where and when you caught the fish. This helps them continue to manage triploid populations on Rufus Woods.