It’s November. Unless you are a deer and elk hunter, it’s the worst month of the year. I used to think February was worst, but February is short, the days actually are getting longer and it is followed by March, which starts spring.
It’s too late to salmon fish, especially this November with such a dearth of coho. It’s too early to fish for winter steelhead, which sure isn’t what it once was.
So, I decided to go, as my neighbor calls it, “trouting.’’
The boat ramp at Swift Reservoir was unusable from early July until last Thursday due to the drought and low streamflows in the North Fork of the Lewis River.
That means 51,300 trout stocked in late May for the June 6 opener had been mostly undisturbed for four months. And in the fall, the limit jumps from 5 trout to 10, which is a better number if you’re going to drive that far for a 12-inch fish.
Anyone who has read this column much in the past three decades knows I have a soft spot for the Merwin, Yale and Swift — especially the kokanee in Merwin Reservoir.
But I was on a mission on Friday in Swift.
The big, big deal for fall chinook in the lower Columbia this summer was trolling with 8- or 11-inch Pro Trolls and Brad’s Super Baits or Super Plug Cuts. I’ve never seen fall chinook bite — outside of the estuary — like they did on Pro Troll-Brad’s combination in September and October. It was incredible.
So, I decided to experiment with the trout at Swift.
On one rod, I put a 4-inch Pro Troll (silver), a 6-inch leader and an orange hoochie tipped with green Gulp maggots. On another rod, I rigged a 3-inch Super Plug Cut (blue Hawaiian) and stuffed the Super Plug Cut with canned tuna. Just behind the Super Plug Cut, I had two No. 6 drop-shot hooks baited with small pieces of nightcrawler.
Forty years of fishing at Swift has taught me many lures and baits will catch those trout, but in case the bite is tough, have some worms available.
Friday was an attempt to apply the experiences gained in the lower Columbia with chinook to trout in Swift and see what would happen.
Everything worked
Well, it wasn’t much of an experiment because everything fishing partner Dick Borneman and I put in the water caught trout — and quickly.
I think the 3-inch blue Hawaiian Super Plug Cut with nightcrawlers got bit the quickest, but hoochies trolled behind the 4-inch Pro Troll were a close second.
After catching about half our limits, we experimented with lures without any bait. All of the following caught trout without bait: red, orange and blue Apexes; a bronze No. 1 Needlefish; a No. 3 spinner blade in bronze and fire-tiger; Smile Blade spinners and a really ugly yellow F7 Flatfish.
I toyed with putting a hook on the pull-ring opener on the top of my Dr. Pepper can to see if that would work.
The fish were very close to the surface. We used 1/2-ounce mooching (banana shape) sinkers with 50 feet of line off the reel. However, sometimes the lures were hit before getting 50 feet out.
We measured five of our 20 fish. They ranged from a smidgen less than 12 inches to a bit more than 14 inches, so a fair size for resident trout in Western Washington.
There’s only 18 days left in the season, and no guarantee the fast bite will persist.
But on decent weather days, it’s better than staying home and pining for spring.
Allen Thomas covers hunting, fishing, hiking, skiing and other outdoor topics for The Columbian. He can be reached at al.thomas@columbian.com or by calling 360-735-4555. He can be followed on Twitter at @col_outdoors.
