Oct.6-11-02 Arrived at Bridgeport State Park on Sunday afternoon. Beautiful park well maintained, clean restrooms, nice shade tree's with a great lawn. Ranger Scott and his wife run a first class operation. What I really liked was that it wasn't a party park, at 10PM you could here a pin drop. Which is great if your fishing. The boat ramp and dock's are in great shape, and for a small fee you can moore your boat there. You can get fuel and munchies at the Texaco/Food Mart across the bridge at the entrance to the city of Bridgeport, about a mile and a half from the campground. If you had forgotten some fishing gear stop in at the hardware store in town, good folk's there. Need a few more grocerie items, your in luck there is a small grocerie store in town. Now lets talk about fishing, took us about 3 day's to figure out the lake. It's huge, 50 miles long.

Talked to a fellow there that gave me the best advice ever. " These are trout, fish this lake the way you would fish your home lake".
Took his advice and on day 4 started working the lake in an "S" pattern 20'-40'. Just kept working this all up and down the lake and much to my surprise it worked, caught some Triploids in the 6-7lb range and what some folk's were calling natives in the 3-5lb range.

Green and Black seemed to be the colors of choice for us, in either a fly or hardware, used both thru out the next few day's. Can't say that we caught them in any one area, but pretty much all over the lake. We ended up taking 5 trout home for table fare and the smoker. If you have never fished this lake, I would recommend that you give it a try. Had a great time and intend on returning. For you Walleye buffs we seen quite a few of them caught there to. Perch in some spot's seemed pretty good, I know some folk's were targeting them for dinner.

I know that alot of folk's encourage you not to keep every trout you catch, and I'd have to agree with them. Remember all these Triploids do is get bigger. Anyway it was a great vacation. Take Care.

Nice trip, Pelican. I'll copy this report over to the reports section.

And after you limit out, there's a nine-hole golf course next to the state park; many Okanogan locals call it their favorite place to play. Thanks for the good fishing report, Pelican.

I will have to agree as being a native to the Okanogan I loved fishing and playing on the lake any time of year in any weather. I do miss it alot at times. But at least I know I can go visit .

I fished on Rufus wood last year up by the net pens and did So-so, not any whoppers. I did manage quiet a few huge Triploids out of Twin Lakes over on the collville rez though! Only other time I have been to bridgeport this year was when I went up w/ my Grandpa and uncle when they were snaggin salmon. Thats really something to watch . I've seen some really nice walleyes taken outa there as well.

~MATT

Yeah, Thanks Mike. I tried to post it in the report section but for some reason it wouldn't except it. The golf course is nice but I didn't get a chance to use it, it was dark by the time we got in. I also tried down by the net pens. The current was so swift that day it was pretty much a waste of our time, considering the gear we were using. But I did talk to a guy that had 2, 12 pounders. I'll tell you though we sure couldn't complain about the weather, it was beautiful. T-Shirt weather, until the last two day's there. One night it dropped down to 24 degrees and that north wind kicked in during the day and didn't warm up until about 2 in the afternoon. The last night we were there it dropped down to 18 degrees. A bit chilly, we left that afternoon and the weather was real warm. Wished I could have stayed for another week. Oh well there's always next year. Take Care.

im heading to eastern Washington this weekend, but its not for fishing this trip.... Hunting fo' me .

~MATT