After my day at Curlew Lake, I spent the night in Republic and then drove 25 miles to Bonaparte Lake the next morning. There was just one truck in the parking area at Bonaparte Lake Resort, which is closed right now. Two other anglers arrived as I was loading my sled and assured me that the ice was nice and thick. I headed toward the middle of the lake, looking for kokanee, while they drilled their holes near some reeds. They were fishing for brook trout and wanted to try water that wasn’t as deep. I got a tip from an angler that there were lots of trout to be caught further down the lake, and he also got a kokanee there earlier that morning. I headed down there and got a limit of rainbow, of up to 12 inches, in no time. No kokanee though. I stopped to visit with the pair fishing for brookies and found they had moved to even more shallow water and were getting tiger trout up to 17 inches. They sere tipping a jig with a piece of shrimp. My next stop will be at Palmer Lake near Loomis up the valley from Tonasket.
Rainbow like this 12-incher are abundant at Bonaparte, and tiger trout are plentiful and even bigger.