FISHING -- Friends who trolled from a boat for trout at Lake Roosevelt Wednesday worked 8 hours and bagged only nine trout total for three of them.  Nice fish to be sure, but that's an unusually lean day at the lake's top trout fishery this time of year.

So I joined two of them this morning to see what the action was like from shore -- or what there is left of it.  The big runoff the past 10 days has left the lake very high. Places we were fishing on the shore two weeks ago are well under water.

But the fishing was fantastic with a basic rig: sliding slip-skinker, swivel, 30 inches of leader, No. 2 hook baited with marshmallow and piece of nightcrawler.

The first in our group caught his limit in less than an hour.  We all were home before 11.  I had my five fish filleted and vacuum-packed by noon -- saving one beauty for a fresh-trout dinner tonight, of course.

My rainbows ranged in length from 16 to 20 inches (15-19 inches fork length).  And that's using a tape measure for accuracy.

I was able to give the English setters a good run and still be back at work by 1:15 p.m.  Nobody missed me.  

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