Spring Break Day 2: Quincy Lake & Rocky Ford

Before I continue with the trip report, let me acknowledge that this spring break trip has nothing to do with the Snoqualmie Valley.  Truth be told, there's not a ton of good fishing in the valley right now for the following reasons:

1. The mainstem of the Snoqualmie is closed (as are most salmon and steelhead rivers this time of year).
   
2. The forks of the river don't fish well until late summer, in my experience.
   
3. The valley lakes are either still closed or haven't been planted.
   
4. The Hancock Tree farm passes have sold out already (whoops! should have got mine!)
   

So for our spring fishing trip we went east out to the Columbia Basin.  I love fishing the desert!  Living in Snoqualmie, you can be at the basin in just 2 hours, which is yet another advantage to our little town.

Anyway, On with the report!

After breakfasting in Ellensburg, we hit the road for Quincy, just on the other side of the Columbia river. Quincy Lake is a beautiful desert lake that receives generous plants of rainbow trout early in the year.  It being a weekday, there were only a few other fisherman plunking away from shore as we motored by in our jon boat.  Amy immediately started getting strikes on her black woolly bugger.

Over the next four hours or so, she received strike after strike, ultimately catching 10 fish, which is a lot for her.  None of them were larger than the one in the picture but that's okay, she had a great time.  The lake was quite windy and by the end of our time there my face felt somewhat blasted by all the cold air. Somehow I caught only 2 fish at Quincy Lake, which seemed strange because the water was clearly teaming with trout.
 

We left the Quincy Wildlife area and drove down to the still-sleeping resort town of Crescent Bar looking for ice cream but everything was closed.  We settled for Mexican food in the town of Quincy proper and then headed to Rocky Ford, one of Amy's favorite fishing spots.

If you've never been to Rocky Ford its worth going.  Its a desert spring creek with a hatchery right on it.  The water is loaded with giant trout who are just milling around feasting on bugs all day.  The trout get quite smart so catching them can be challenging.  We usually just fish from the dock.  Amy can cast farther than I can now I noticed.  Of course, she immediately hooked up with a couple of big trout.
 

I caught only one trout, which happened to be the largest one.  Please ignore my funny Elmer-Fudd hat -- it was cold at the end of the day and I appreciated warm ears.

Finally tally for the day: Amy = 12 Fish.  David = 3 fish.

Day 2: Dinner and Lodging

We fished until dark and then drove down to the motel cluster at Moses Lake (all the way back to I-90).  We stayed at the Ramada Inn and ate fast food in our room.   I'd stay at the Ramada again, it was nice and reasonably priced.