Rufus Woods Lake

Rufus Woods Lake is an 82 km (51 mile) long section of the upper Columbia River, impounded downstream by Chief Joseph Dam and upstream by Grand Coulee Dam. The reservoir is often termed a run-of-the-river reservoir due to its relatively low water retention times, averaging 72 hours; a result of its narrow and deep channel. Rufus Woods represents about half of the southern boundary of the Colville Indian Reservation and separates the Reservation from Douglas County to the south. Rufus Woods Lake has been jointly managed by Colville Tribes Fish and Wildlife and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. 

Species known to inhabit Rufus Woods include rainbow trout, walleye, kokanee, carp, tench, burbot, smallmouth bass, lake whitefish, northern pikeminnow, longnose sucker, largescale sucker, bridgelip sucker, and brown trout, but a variety of additional species may have also inhabited the reservoir based on its upstream connection to Lake Roosevelt and its tributaries.

The Rufus Woods Creel and Supplementation project has a primary goal of maintaining a subsistence fishery for tribal members and a quality sport fishery for non-members. In order to do this, the project attempts to determine a sustainable supplementation strategy that will produce the highest level catch rate of rainbow trout. The project also directly supports supplementation through the purchase of rainbow trout from private net-pen aquaculture facilities on Rufus Woods Lake, as well as releasing some of the rainbow trout from the Tribes’ hatchery net-pen.