We had our grand daughter today and she needed to go fishing. We had never been to Alta so we tried after going to Roses & Wapato and saw too many whitecaps. There was no wind on Alta until around 5pm when it got a little breezy. Stilll not bad enough to use a small rowboat and trolling motor with a weak battery.
We caught a couple trolling away from the ramp and really got into them by some reeds near the rock slide. The big one was 15" & 1.5lb with the others in the 9-12 inch range.
It cost $7 to launch and you need a discover pass. It is a State Park.

Always go to Alta Lake for the Memorial day weekend. The fishing was great if you dont mind catching minnows. One thing about this lake, no matter the time of day you can always catch fish. This year most of the fish caught were 4-8 inchers from the fry plants. The bait used didnt matter they were hitting every thing. Did manage to catch this 18", kept him for dinner. Even saw a very hefty Koi caught, go figure. One guy did catch a 6 lb monster over the weekend.
My boyfriend & a friend of ours saw the guy come up the beach with it and another friend got a pic of it but hasnt e-mailed it to me yet. In 20 years of fishing this lake, I never saw a fish that big caught here. My biggest here was 22 inches. All in all was a great but whew hot vacation.

Lake Pateros is the resevior between Wells dam and Chief Joseph dam on the Columbia River, this would be a great lake to add to Washington Lakes.com as this is where the majority of the Summer run Chinook that are headed up the Okanogan River are caught, also great walleye and great bass fishing, would really like to see the reports for opening day on Lake Pateros, usually opens around the 15th of July for Kings and there are usually over 200 boats in the water at sunrise. Thanks.

Fished Alta on the last day of the season(9-30-05) what a great day of fishing, along with my dad and my son we cought fish as soon as we hit the water. The fish bit on anything we threw at them, all nice fish too! Had a great time and can't wait untill next year....Buck

My dad took me to Alta when I was a kid so I thought I would pass the experience on to mine. Got to the lake Friday at 9:30am and set up camp. Didn't get much fishing in on Friday. Too busy teaching the kids, fixing birds nests and tying line. Saturday as better. Found the best times to fish were 5-8am with 6am being the hottest, and about 3-6pm. Anywhere along the bank is good but the best seems to be to the far left and right where there are poll holders set up along the bank. Stay away from the rocks just up the road from the park, tried there twice and didn't even get a bite. We heard they were biting on chartreuse power bait and eggs, but we had better luck with the rainbow bait and eggs. This was my kids first time fishing and they each caught 2 fish. We decided to fish for an hour before we left on Sunday and that was when my daughter caught the biggest fish of all, a whopping 15 1/2 inches. All the fish we caught were relly good size 9-11 inches, but that one was the icing on the cake. We all had an excellent time. The fishing was hot, the lake was beautiful and I hope to come back soon and for years to come.