I also got stuck in the wind storm to Sarge, I went over to help my grandparents get ready to come back home! My grampa and i went out after some smallies and got nothing! But we were out their no more than 15 minutes and saw the dust on the hill side their! And went back in just before the storm hit! I did meet a former member after the storm let up! Never got his name but was a nice guy! He fished the federation back in 1992! He says he been catching a ton of 3-4lb smallies while trying to catch squawfish his biggest so far is 4.6lbs though!

I was there this weekend too Chris. It was tough. Saturday we got a keeper largie and slayed the dinks along Goose Island and Lind Coulee, even in 25 ft of water.

On Sunday we had a different plan and it payed off with decent fish. We fished deeper dunes towards the main lake. Didn't get way back in them. Fishing cranks really slow paid off. We had several decent 2lbers and a few smaller ones. My friend lost a good fish at least 3 lbs. We had others get off. Was a lot better than Saturday though. I think our approach helped. I have never fished in the dunes and I was overwhelmed with areas. Once we keyed in on what was working for us, we did alright.

Hi Y'all,

Currently, I am typing from the Spokane Holiday Day Inn. Free internet access... WHhheeeee! 

Bob Payseno and I are taking a few evenings to fish the area after he gets done each day with teaching workshops. This is indeed the life.

Sunday we hit Potholes from 7am to 7pm and got our butts whooped! Bob caught a keeper smallie and keeper largemouth (~2 pounds). But other than that, we got nothing but smallie dinks for the day. It was hot, about 96-97 degrees for a high, and there wasn't much wind!

We fished back in the dunes to no avail, but started catching fish once we went back into Lind Coulee. Spinnerbaits, topwater, and dropshot produced the few fish we caught. As usual, there were a ton of dinks along the dam, but Bob also got his best smallie along there on a chug bug.

Last night we hit Long Lake on the Spokane River. This was my first time there. What a cool lake! We only got to fish about two hours in the evening as we were blown off by a HUGE duststorm. You may have seen coverage on the news. It came in so fast that we could barely outrun it in Bob's Champion with a 225 Opti. No joke! It looked like the Banks Lake Memorial Day fiasco all over again. Luckily we got off the water in time to miss the main part of the storm. Before getting off the lake, we ended up catching a bunch of dink smallies on topwater and dropshots. I got one 4-6 largemouth on a jig in the middle of a huge padfield. He bumped the bait on the surface, I pitched it back in, and he nailed it. Just like the magazines describe Hopefully we can get back to the lake before we leave. It looks really promising, and word is that it took 39 pound for 10 fish to win a local tournament a while back.

Sorry for the long post... Just trying to kill time until Bob gets back from the workshop!!!

Chris