I got a call from my fishing buddy Dennis Beich saying that fellow WDFW commissioner Jim Anderson was in the area, and would I like to go to Billy Clapp. You bet, I said. Dennis has a 14-foot boat, which is what you need here right now, as the water level is still low, and you have to launch from the sandy beach. After resolving some battery issues, we headed up lake to the point above the big basalt island. Here we ran out four rods, all on side planers and all with floating Rapalas of different sizes and patterns. It didn’t take long for us to get the first fish in the boat, and although the fishing wasn’t as good as the last time I was there, we were getting hits or landing fish fast enough to keep our interest. I did discover that on this particular day the fish liked the lures flatlined behind the boat, and not necessarily on the side planers. Go figure. We trolled to the takeout at about noon, not knowing how long the bow mount would last. We had eight rainbow of 14 to 17 ½ inches in the cooler.
WDFW commissioner Jim Anderson shows off one of the rainbow we caught at Billy Clapp, near Soap Lake.