It's the Terrible at Fishing radio show on Gold
Country Radio. Here's your fishing expert and
host, Michael Ruffino. Welcome back to Terrible
at Fishing everybody. Well, we've had another
exciting week. Finally got my boat back out on
the water this week and that is exciting for
me. You're just more comfortable with all your
own stuff, your own boat, your own fishing gear.
It's just so much nicer. It was a beautiful day
on Wednesday. And Wednesday was also a stocking
day at Lake of the Woods. That's where I was.
And they stocked a little heavier on the trophies
than they were on the legal size rainbow trout.
They stocked it at about 2 30 in the afternoon
and we'll go over stocking schedules here pretty
soon. I did catch a couple decent trout and as
well as perch, of course, and the I caught, let
me take a look, just over a one pounder and just
over and a 1 .6 pounder. my fishing so they were
see if I can find the measurements and we are
going to yeah here we go a 14 and a half incher
and a 16 and a third incher rainbow trout they
hit a spinner and you know when when things are
dumped into the lake they basically they're not
real hungry. They are under a shock, so you're
really working off of an instinctive bite. And
so throwing a spinner is a great way to catch
fresh stock. And I'm going to be fishing in the
next couple days to work for what eats these
legals, which is brown trout. The brown trout
are going to be coming up and hitting these legals.
When stocking is actually done, all those new
fish are dumped into the reservoir, or the lake
in this case, and they make a lot of noise. I
mean, they really do. Fish actually have audible
signals, and they're just blah blah blah blah
blah. I mean, they're just yelling in their way,
and it's carrying over the entire lake. So now
the whole lake And it's not a big lake, it's
only three miles by one mile, and sound travels
farther in water. So all these fish that were
in other parts of the lake are coming to the
stocking area, which is the main ramp at Lake
of the Woods. So now you've got largemouth bass
and rainbow trout, or brown trout, that are coming
to eat these. Now, the crazy thing is too, we're
seeing the bass start their pre -spawn. We'll
talk about that, too, on what to do about bass
in this next four weeks or so. But those brown
trout are huge. Now, please put them back. After
you measure them and do what you want with them
in photos, put them back in the lake. I am a
catch and release type of guy, unless it's, you
know, planter fish or something like that, or
I damage the fish. but these fish are old they're
wonderful to catch and with brown trout you're
going to troll around the lodge area in about
10 feet of water and try to get that big swim
bait down to about 8 feet just about you know
two or three feet off bottom and Troll it and
and and try to stop and start it and make it
look injured. You're going to be doing it in
a light pattern or a rainbow pattern, which sort
of mirrors the rainbow trout. You're going to
do it first thing in the morning and late late
in the afternoon, like right before sunset. The
beautiful thing about Lake of the Woods, you
can fish it at night. It is a 24 -hour lake.
and at night you can get some really big fish.
Now again, please put these fish back in the
lake. Legally you can keep it, but there are
some lakes like Diamond Lake, if you catch a
brown, you cannot legally damage it permanently
and you can't keep it. So you have to put it
back. But just for gamesmanship, do what you
need to do and put it back. And I use an app
called FishTechie and you just put a little orange
ball next to it and you take a picture of it
and it does all the measurements for you and
you can put it back in the water ASAP. You don't
have to pull it out of the water, you don't have
to gill it and weigh it and measure it. I mean,
they're tough fish. Don't get me wrong, like
bass, because these are old fish that have survived,
you know, a decade plus, and they're tough. But,
I would suggest putting the brown back in the
lake, please. Just so other people can enjoy
it. And then, of course, repeat the cycle as
they get bigger. So, that's the beauty. of it,
following the stocking schedules of legal size.
Trout gives you the beasts that actually eat
these legal size. I mean, when you think about
it, I mean, how big does a fish have to be to
eat an eight -inch fish? I mean, it's got to
be pretty big, and a big enough mouth, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera. So using, if you just want
to catch the stock fish, I mean, just a spinner
or some rainbow power bait, And I would suggest
a water bobber or a bubble bobber. Bubble bobbers
are bobbers that slide on your line and you fill
it with water. No air in it whatsoever. Just
fill that thing up with water, the bobber. You're
going to put it on the smaller end pointing towards
your rod. And then you're going to put a barrel
connector. That's a stopper. you're going to
put three to five feet of leader on it. No more,
no less. Three to five feet of leader with a
number 10 hook and then just put some power bait
on it. You're going to toss it out there and
just let it sit with slack. No tight lines on
it, okay? You're going to give that that bait
slack. What ends up happening with a bubble bobber
is that it has enough Weight to sink but enough
buoyancy to have neutral buoyancy within the
water so what it's going to do is going to draw
it's going to slowly drop into the water column
and then it's going to touch the weed bed and
Stop and it's going to have this neutral buoyancy
and then power bait floats So three to five foot
leader your your bait is up above it and with
the motion of the water, the current, it's going
to be moving slowly. That is enough for the trout
to be attracted to it. When the trout bites it,
this is where it's important to not have tight
lines, okay? You gotta give it slack. The trout
is going to swallow that bait and hook itself
and give it the ability to run on it. and then
when it runs it's going to create you know that
slack is going to tighten and it's going to hook
itself it's going to set the hook itself at that
point your rod is going to bend pull it up have
fun and then repeat if you do this okay the bubble
bobber method with three to five foot leader
you will catch your limit of trout. Now, you
will also catch a lot more than that. So, what
you'd wanna do to do this properly, have a hook
de -hooker. It's a de -hooker, it's just a little
thing. And when you pull it up to your boat,
if it's not what you want, leave it in the water
in the net. and just pop the hook out with the
de -hooker and keeping the fish in the water.
Stock trout are easily shocked. They're easily
shocked. So if you pull them out of the water,
you do think they're going to die. They're not
going to survive. De -hook it and let them go.
And then keep repeating until you get a size
of a trout that you want. So you're going to
catch a lot of legals, but you want trophies.
And don't worry, you're going to catch like 20
fish in a day. You're going to have your pick.
Stop at five. Your limit is five, okay? That's
your limit is five. So please obey the law, okay?
But keep the fish in the water and use a de -hooker
in order to remove the hook. If you use the bubble
bobber method, you will catch a lot of trout.
What you want to do is sort of hit the drop -off
and cast towards the shallows. Since they did
stock at the main ramp, what I noticed, because
I was out there, I noticed that they were going
left along the shoreline. By working Rainbow
Bay along that shoreline, you're going to find
those trout. There are some holdover areas, which
is underneath the marina, right there. There's
some divots just beyond the boat ramp dock, just
beyond it, about 75 feet. There's a holdover
area where they like to settle in. But along
that shoreline, on the main ramp towards Rainbow
Bay, running along Rainbow Bay, they went left.
I did follow the migration of it. And you're
going to catch a lot of trout this weekend. Just
shore fishing, bank fishing, the Rainbow Bay.
Also, I'm sure they'll make their way over to
Sunset there, too. And there's a nice holdover
beyond the old lily pad area that they like to
settle in on. So you're going to have to need
some kind of flotation device to get out there.
And you'll be able to fish that holdover area
in the middle of Rainbow Bay towards the lily
pad area. You know what I mean. There's no lily
pads at the moment, but they're growing. and
there's this divot out there and you can catch
your limit out there. So really easy fishing
over at Lake of the Woods right now. We're going
to go, we're going to talk a little bit about
in our next segment we're going to go over the
stocking reports because I think that's real
important for you to chase big giant fish and
have a great day. Now I uh There there is a really
cool event coming up not this weekend, but the
following weekend on Saturday at Veterans Park
There's a migratory bird day now. I am a big
bird watching fan I am I mean my wife and I we
owned a store in Fresno at one time called the
Wild Bird Center and Every Saturday I took people
out on Bird walks and I showed them the birds
of you know, Fresno. And it was amazing because
you can walk through a neighborhood and see five
different woodpeckers, which is one of my favorite
categories of birds. Also a lot of cedar wax
wings. You'd be surprised at what you would see
walking in your neighborhood. And if you just
listen and look up to see what's there. Now,
Migratory Bird Day is a celebration of what's
coming in the area. And we have so much waterfowl,
which is my weakness. I'm more of a songbird
type of guy. But you'd be surprised the variety.
I mean, just in Veterans Park, you could probably
knock out 70 different species of birds in a
day, maybe 100. There are so many. The Green
Herons that love Lake River. And there's just,
I mean, the Green Herons are really cool. And
if you bring your binoculars, you know, to the
park, I will have a booth set up and to show
you, you know, my stuff, but also to help you
with your bird identification. So that's the...
That's not this tomorrow. This is actually going
to be on the 17th. So, 17th at Veterans Park.
Alright, we're going to take a break and we're
going to go over the fishing stocking schedules
in this next segment. Pay close attention because
this is how you catch the big ones. So, stay
tuned. You can't just find Gold Country Radio.
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beyond. terrible at fishing but it feels just
right okay welcome back to terrible at fishing
all right we are going to go over the stocking
schedule for our area so let me go to the website
which is the od myodfw or odfw .com and you can
go to the fish stocking schedule and just type
in a lake, okay? Put the dates that you want,
type in a lake, and you can just go ahead and
hit apply. And then it gives you the stocking
schedule. Now, last week, or this week I should
say, they stocked 670 legals, 600 trophies. So
that was a really good stocking. You saw, if
you follow me, You on Facebook You will find
that I did catch some pretty good size one that
came right off the truck Now May 19th through
23rd, which is in a couple weeks That week they're
going to really stock it up with Legals 1000
Legals with 600 trophies So, that's 1 ,600 fish
that will be dumped into Lake of the Woods. So,
now we're going to go to Fish Lake. Now, interesting
about Fish Lake... Fish Lake is a different forest.
And Fish Lake is a lake with... that has a different
hatchery. So you get slightly different fish
there, and the 12th through 16th, they're going
to put in a ton of fish. It is a trout lake,
okay? It's not a bass lake like Lake of the Woods.
So next week, okay, this coming week, they're
going to put in 4 ,500 legals. Now what's so
great about that? is that those tiger trout,
which are ravenous and huge, illegal to keep,
but they will be hitting those legals. So 4 ,500
legals and 500 trophies. 5 ,000 fish next week
at Fish Lake. That is, well, that's a lot. That's
a lot. And that's because the, those other fish
that are in it, they're just going to be wanting
it. Now, over at Lost Creek Reservoir, if you
thought that was a lot, okay, the same week,
again this is a different hatchery than we get
on this side, Lost Creek is going to be stocked
with 10 ,000 legals. 10 ,000 legals and 1 ,500
trophies for a total of 11 ,500 fish. So next
week, Lost Creek Reservoir will be given 10 ,000
and 1 ,500. Again, the big fish are going to
be coming up and hitting these 10 ,000 legals.
It is going to be a fantastic stocking. So let's
look at Willow Lake. I love Willow Lake. It's
just a cute little lake, great for kayaking,
great for small boats. So let's take a look to
see when they have in two weeks. They're going
to have a really good stocking. Again, we're
seeing our bass into a pre -spawn mode. When
they go into pre -spawn mode, they're not going
to hit anything. All right, they're going they're
finding their beds They're laying their eggs
and they're gonna sit there and they're gonna
sit in the shallows. I do not recommend fishing
bedding bass now some people do Really hard to
get them to bite. But if you do put them back,
let them finish their nesting But I don't like
disturbing them Typically, I'm going to be waiting
on bass fishing for, you know, somewhere in late
June. And then when they come off, their beds
are going to be really, really hungry. It's going
to be a lot of fun catching them. And the water's
warming up really nice. It was 53, 54 degrees
when I came off the lake this week at Lake of
the Woods. Willow Lake. Alright, from the 19th
through 23rd we'll be giving 5 ,500 fish, 4 ,000
legals, 1 ,500 trophies on such a small lake.
This will make fishing incredible. It is a very
beautiful little footprint of a dinosaur lake
and it's like a big giant T -Rex put its foot
down. Willow Lake is about 20 minutes past Lake
of the Woods, 25 minutes. Great lake, beautiful
lake, incredible boat ramp. It has a great boat
ramp. You're going to love launching at Willow
Lake. So 5 ,500 fish will be put there in about
a week and a half. That is going to be a lot
of fun. So let's go over to Howard's Prairie.
We gotta go type it in, Howard's. There it is,
Howard's Prairie. Now let's see what they're
going to be getting. They are going to be getting
just legals on the 19th through 23rd, about a
week and a half. They're going to be getting
7 ,450 legals. Now the great thing about that
is, you know, again, bigger fish are going to
be coming up, those largemouths, Howard's Prairies.
Again, we're looking at a spawning type of scenario,
but you can catch a lot of really nice big fish
that are feeding off a large plant of legals.
So week and a half, 7450 fish. So let's look
at Hyatt's Hyatt Reservoir, which is not too
far from Howard's Prairie. Nothing Let's look
at Gerber. I like Gerber and Come on Nothing,
what do you mean Gerber? How about Willow Valley?
Nothing all right, so we're just going to be
Oh Thompson Thompson, let's see if Thompson's
getting anything. They've been stocked really,
really well. You go to Thompson, you're going
to be catching some big stuff. They got nothing.
But you don't have to worry about that. You go
to Thompson, it'll do really well. Now, Anna
Reservoir, a little bit of a drive, but Anna,
let's see if Anna's getting anything. Oh yeah,
we're getting Anna at 2400 Legals. 19th through
23rd Okay, so that kind of oh wait, how about
Lost River? Lost Creek, Lost Lake, no All right,
we are looking We're looking really good, so
So those are our fishing reports our fishing
stocking schedule or for our local area right
now now What are you going to use Now berm worms
work always work Yeah, but spinners are working
really really well, and they usually do this
time of year small finesse spinners Very good.
Now, I've been using some bigger ones. So basically,
you know, you'd be surprised at what a lipless
crankbait with a spinner attached to it, a willow
blade, or if it's small and finesse, maybe a
Colorado blade. Try that. You can go to Amazon
and look up spinners. or spinner hooks, ones
that already have the spinner attached to them.
Adding a willow blade hook to the back end of
a crank bait or a lipless blade works very, very
well. It'll get you about twice your hookup ratio
because it adds length, it adds a swimming action,
and it adds flash, of course. So all three of
those things are a sort of a trick, okay, to
add to your arsenal that you already have. And,
you know, for a few bucks, adding that hook with
a willow blade, a willow blade is an elongated
blade. Again, we want to increase the size of
our bait without increasing our outgo money,
but also add that swim action. And if you watch
me on terrible at fishing on YouTube and type
in brown trout. You will see me catch a 27 inch
9 pound brown trout off of a lipless with a willow
blade attached to it that I made. So if you if
you go to my YouTube channel you will see stuff
like this. I did not record the trout that I
caught because it was at the end of the day and
my batteries were dead. And we'll get some more
footage on there. And I've been busy doing a
lot of artwork. For the migratory bird day because
I want to present, you know my art I will be
selling some of my baits over there and stuff
like that But I want you guys to really dive
into the migratory bird watching when you're
fishing is just a joy This time of year, you
know We've got our spring migration and they're
coming into town. You're going to see sandhill
cranes. You're going to see some absolutely beautiful
birds. The green herons and just beautiful, beautiful
birds. And I'm enjoying it. The western tanager,
which is sort of like my, I call my tequila sunrise
birds. If you ever go on a bird walk with me,
you will laugh. because I have nicknames. Now,
Audubon guys go nuts. Audubon guys are pretty
anal about naming their birds. You know, you
will do, they say, oh look, a blue jay. An Audubon
guy will get mad at you because we have no blue
jays in the western United States. That's in
eastern United States. What we have are scrub
jays and we have stellars jays. We have mountain
bluebirds and western bluebirds. And so, to an
Audubon guy, some of them, not all, but some
of them are pretty anal. And they will correct
you. And they will tell you that that is not
a blue jay. Well, if you really want to get picky,
that's not a blue bird at all. Those feathers
are not blue at all. That's just what you perceive
it to be. And they're actually brown. So I mean
you can give a Audubon guy kind of a hard time
if he's giving you a hard time By calling a J
a blue J here on the Western United States. You
can just tell them So what color is it? You'll
say oh, they're blue. Yeah, is it a J? Yeah,
and well, it's not a blue J It's a scrub J or
a Stellar's J, but you can also tell them that
there's no such thing as blue feathers so It's
an optical illusion I'm so honoring. I went on
a bird walk in Squam once and the guy was, you
know, I go, oh, everybody come over here. There's
the tequila sunrise bird over here. And the,
the, the, the Audubon guy was just mad at me.
And it was a Western tanager, which it looks
like the drink, you know, red, orange, yellow,
just beautiful. I mean, it's just. looks like
a tequila sunray, or bad hair daybirds, you know,
a stellars jay, or a belted kingfisher, those
are bad hair daybirds. And so it's kind of fun
to get under their skin. But my guys, my team,
my group, we always have a good time. And, you
know, I will give them those little things that
there's no such thing as blue and feathers. Or,
you know, the average, you know, eagle's nest,
you know, bald eagle's nest, weighs 3 ,000 pounds.
And those are fun little facts that, you know,
an autobahn guy just doesn't give you. He just
gives you the proper definition and, you know,
the bird code for that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed
this week's show and hopefully you will get up
to the lakes. Every lake is spilling over. Every
river is at volume. You are going to have the
best fishing this year in Oregon. So, tight lines
to each and every one of you. Have fun out there.
I really hope I helped you get excited about
what's happening. locally. We'll see you on the
water or on the 17th at the Migratory Bird Festival
at Veterans Park. That was terrible at fishing
the radio show with fishing expert Michael Ruffino
Check out terrible at fishing on YouTube and
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