My long-time fishing buddy, James Lebow, knows all the great fisheries near his home in Moses Lake. He got me into some terrific fishing for big rainbow and kokanee on Billy Clapp, near Soap Lake last spring. He has told me about the winter fishing for big rainbow for years, and we gave it a try last Friday. Since the reservoir is drawn down in the winter, and you have to back your boat to the water’s edge across the sandy shore, he got his fishing friend Milton Colby Miller to take us in his 12-foot boat. Bigger boats are likely to get mired in the soft sand and get stuck. Four-wheel drive trucks are advised even when launching smaller craft. We ran up the lake past the big basalt island and put out our rods. Two were on side planers and the other just flatlined. All had Rapala floating plugs, and most were jointed. It didn’t take long to get into the fish, and we caught and released probably 25 rainbow that were all a solid 14 inches. We did get one that measured 19 inches and weighed at least 3 pounds. These bigger fish are usually showing up in better numbers in the winter at Billy Clapp, and my two buddies agreed that there should be more of them biting by mid-February.
Milton Colby Miller landed this 19-inch rainbow on Billy Clapp last Friday.