I mentioned earlier that I was invited to fish Billy Clapp with some friends. Dennis and Monica Beich met me at the boat launch at 7 and off we went. It was chilly with a slight breeze, and we were looking forward to having a busy day. Dennis and Monica live in Marlin, not far from Billy Clapp and have many great days in the early spring catching rainbow. We were trolling above the island and Dennis noticed a fish rise in some calm water and steered over there. Boom! His rod bounced and soon we had a very nice fish to the boat. The fish was about 16 inches and was almost square. It had a deep girth and was very chunky. We got our lines out again and continued to troll a variety of shallow running Rapalas. We trolled and trolled, but never got another hit. We were all surprised. Conditions seemed perfect and we are used to catching lots of rainbow at this time of year. We’ll be back, though. The traditional good rainbow bite has to happen soon. I look forward to walleye fishing at the upper end, and there are lots of smallmouth bass in Billy Clapp, too.