Many trout anglers dusted off their gear when the lakes in the Quincy Wildlife Area opened to fishing earlier this month. Even more will participate in the “April Fools” opening of the dozens of lakes in the Columbia Wildlife Refuge at the first of next month. There are some lakes open year-round that offer some their best fishing for really big trout in the early spring. Potholes Reservoir is one of them. While most people are out chasing walleye there are some anglers that target rainbow and even brown trout here and get some whoppers. Every year the most and biggest rainbow are taken from Banks Lake by bass anglers casting crank baits for bass. A lake that is one my list this spring is Sprague Lake, near Ritzville. I was shown some photos of the trout that are coming out of this lake that made my mouth water. It is also one of the lakes that received a significant plant of surplus steelhead last year. Lake Roosevelt is known for producing limit numbers of rainbow, and these are always much larger than the typical rainbow taken from the lakes that open at the end of April. Now’s the time to catch big rainbow on many lakes in the region.