I can remember fishing Wapato Lake, near Lake Chelan, when I was just big enough to hold and rod, and catching rainbow to 20 inches. It is good to know that is still possible. The lake is primarily sustained on fingerling plants and their numbers were boosted by ten percent for this season. There should be good numbers of 14- to 15-inch rainbow caught this year and a fair number of 20-inch carryovers. Wapato is a deep lake and I have always been impressed with the table quality of the trout here. To make the opening weekend even better the lake will receive a bonus plant of 4,000 large catchables and 500 “jumbo” triploids. Fishing at Wapato should be great. Known primarily as a trout water the lake also offers very good fishing for largemouth bass and perch. Last spring 30,000 fingerling crappie were introduced the lake. The plant was scattered and put in areas where there was a lot of cover for the small fish, but largemouth of 4 and 5 pounds were seen chasing them. It would be great to have a good crappie fishery here. We need more of those in our region.