To say "the Spokane area", one really is taking a daring step to encompass just about as much area as he or she wants to! Lakes and rivers easily accessible from "the Spokane area" could include Chewelah Creek running straight through the heart of the thriving micropolis of Chewelah, Washington. Silver, Chapman, or Williams Lakes, or even Badger or Fish Lake - which is out near Chenney. Even Jump-Off Joe Lake and Medical Lake. Of course, such closer lakes as Liberty Lake, Newman Lake, and of course the Spokane River, which flows straight through the heart of downtown Spokane present truly local options indeed. These lakes have all been favorite hotspots of mine throughout my growing up and adult years.
Jump-Off Joe was great back in the 1990s, and then they roaknoaned it to kill off all the goldfish and I have not been back there or heard any reports out of it since. Liberty Lake, of course, is no longer the same lake it use to be 15 years ago! You still hear reports out of Liberty, but everyone seems to have their own "special technique" for fishing the lake. It just doesn't put out like it use to!
Newman was great and multi-gamefish specie inhabited all through the 80s and 90s, but then WSU got into some heavy experimentation on the lake and introduced Tiger Muskees in order to - supposedly - curb carp populations, as the official story goes. Well, the Tiger Muskees have eaten pretty much everything in the lake over the past 8 or 10 years or so that it has been since the project began and now there are some great Tiger Muskee in the lake, but not much else. Some real lunkers were pulled out in a mid-Summer Tiger Muskee competitions held at Cherokee Landing in the Summer of 2010.
Check out scenes from a slow opening weekend at West Medical Lake (May 1, 2011):
Here is a quick video from Liberty Lake the same day (May 1, 2011)....equally as slow:
~Phil Anderson
