My friends Dave, John and I did our annual Dry Falls trip recently. We normally have a bigger crew, but three dropped out this year for various reasons.

Our lodging was at the luxurious Ala Cozy Motel located in Coulee City. The Ala Cozy is located next to the center of the universe in Coulee City, Big Wally’s. For those unfamiliar with Big Wally’s, it kind of has a bit of everything.
It offers gas, ice cream, bakery, grocery store, tackle shop, restaurant and of course the best part, a liquor store.
What more could a person ask for as far as lodging and amenities?

The fishing was good. The bows averaged 14 to 16", with quite a few in the 18-19" range. The majority of the fish fought well, but a few of the spawners were a bit sluggish. The fish were smaller on average this year compared to last year.
We each managed to have double digit days. John took big fish honors with a couple of browns pushing 20”. John had the hot hand on the browns, landing 8 for the trip, while Dave and I caught only rainbows. No tiger trout were caught this trip.

I spent nearly all of my time chironomid fishing, while Dave and John trolled around and cast to shoreline cruisers.
Hot bugs for me were a size 14 chartreuse, size 16 red butt brown and a size 18 gray with silver rib. Most of the fish came in 20’ to 24’ of water fishing a long leader.
John had his best luck on water boatmen. The browns really seemed to like this pattern. Dave scored big on an olive dragon nymph. Both of them had their best luck fishing intermediate lines.
We also got fish on brown and black leeches as well as San Juan worms.

A highlight of the trip was watching two Peregrine falcons hunt down other birds over the lake. You actually hear the birds coming before you see them. They sound like a small jet as they zoomed by. When they hit their prey, all you see a big puff of feathers, sort of like the bird exploding. The speed is incredible and there are a few less swallows at the lake now.
A hawk ventured into their territory as well and was quickly run off the premises.

A fun weekend with good friends, fishing and liquor.
Here are a few pics.

A few more pics.

Nice report. I used to Spend three days a year over there fishing Sun Lake and Blue Lake and camping with buddies. Fishing was always decent. One day we would play the Sun Lakes golf course in a 9 hole 1-club tourney....Always good times.

Big Wally's is a pretty cool spot. If you ever want to find out whats going on with the Trout & Walleye fishing in E.W., Big Wally's is the place.

Cool place to fish and awesome scenery! I remember the first time that I fished at Dry Falls. My wife and I stayed in a tent at the campground close to the golf course. That night, we were startled from our sleep by a cougar chasing a deer past our tent. A short time later, the cougar killed the deer not very far from our camp site. Later that night, my wife woke up to something being dragged past our tent.

Regards,

Andrew

I've know Marge and Gordy Steinmetz for over 20 years now. Big Walleye's is a first class operation all the way and Marge makes the finest bagged lunches in the state. Also not to miss is the Saturday night Prime Rib (assuming they still do this as it's been about 5 years since I last stopped by).

In fact Gordy combined with a bottle of whiskey and stringer of giant Banks Lake rainbow's is one of the core reason's I became a fishing junky as a 20 year old!!!

Those are some nice, chunky bows. The brown is also a beautiful specimen. The quality of the trout in Eastern WA is truly outstanding, and the scenery is always a refreshing change.

Nice work there, on the pics and the fishing.

Great prose and pixels. Thanks for sharing....

Dry Falls is one of my favorite places to fish. I may be over there in May. I am glad you guys had a good time over there. Nice pictures.

Tell the falcon story S_F, its just too cool.


c/22

Nice pictures. Looks like a lot of fun.