Hi my name is Cameron I'm 25 years old, well almost 26. Anyhow my fiance and myself just purchased a house in Medical Lake, WA. I know from reading and from others I've talked to what great fishing you have. I live in Northern California and have all my life. I live in the sierra nevadas towards lake tahoe and have fished all my life. Out here we pretty much pursue rainbows, some cutthroat and some trophy brown, 10+ lbs from time to time. I guess what I'm looking for is a trout fisherman in the spokane area that can give me the details and maybe answer questions and share stories. Do you guys have mountain lakes in Eastern Washington that have big browns around the 10lb range. I know you have huge rainbows. Anyhow hope you don't all hate me because I'm from California, I can't stand most Californian's either. Thanks - Cameron

I'm not from the spokane area anymore but I lived on the east side and fished every chance I could get for over 20 years.......

If you want big browns you may want to include eastern oregon on your list of entrees.... Wickiup Lake, East Lake, and Lake Paulina (near bend) are good big brown trout waters.........

way to many good rainbow and cutthroat lakes near spokane to mention, but if you fly fish, you will definitely want to check out Amber early and often.....

Will also want to get to know lake Roosevelt...

good fishing there for big kokanee and rainbows.. lots of water and lots of fish.....

for lunkers you'll want to start learning the secrets of Rufus Woods lake (the columbia river reservoir below Roosevelt lake)... the lunkers here arn't brown trout though, they are what we call "triploid Rainbows".... a normal rainbow in most respects but genetically modified to make it grow bigger and stronger......

there's also some good fishing for big winter run steelhead and salmon in the columbia and Snake rivers south and west of you......

Thanks for the info. Most of the fishing I do here is out of my boat. I really like running shoreline tight at 3-5 mph with rapalas. It's an amazing feeling when you have an agressive brown hit like that. Occasionally I'll hit a decent rainbow with the same tactic. The fishing here is good I won't say it's not, but living here my whole life and with our big population growth here in the Sierra Nevadas there seem to be more fisherman than fish these days. The reason my grandparents moved here in the early 60's was for the small town atmosphere and the beautiful outdoors. Now there is a ton of traffic, prices have gone through the roof and I as an adult looking to make a life for myself, can't afford it here. I was quite impressed with how clean Eastern Washington is and how kind the people seemed to be. That's like it was here 10 or so years ago. Now we have all the people from Southern California and the Bay Area that have worked there way up here into the mountains and have made everything crazy. I hate it. Thanks for the info and any other info from others would be greatly appreciated - Cameron

Yea going on with what littleriver mentioned, anything around bend oregon is a great bet for trout. Its in about central oregon, and their are many great lakes, a lot of which with the brown trout you target. Its probably too long for a day drive, but you could look into taking a weekend trip down their, and maybe stretching out a week and fish those lakes...

Also check out Priest Lake in Northern Idaho, they have huge trout over there, rainbow and lake I believe.

From Cali?

All our lakes are completely empty. No fish here at all. And the alkaline water will kill you if you try to swim in it. Fry you like that monster at the end of "Gremlins."

If the water doesn't get you the venomous Goliath Slugs will. They live in the mud at the waters edge. They run about 2'-3' long and have a single 3" fang that packs enough punch to take down a horse. There's no antidote, either.

Right now's thier mating season when they are the most ornery.

Best thing for you to do is just stay in California. Tell everyone you know to stay away as well. It's for thier own safety.

You don't need to worry about the slugs. All you have to do is drag a string of empty beer cans [like behind a car at a wedding] the clanking will scare then off. As fare as the empty lakes that is why we use beer cans. The prosessed beverage with the extra nitrates is taking some of the roughness out of the alkaline. No one mentioned the west side lakes especially the urban ones like Green and Angle. But you only want to go on week days and don,t bother going till 4 P.M, That is when all the cars are gone.