In 1996, the Colville Tribes, working with Columbia River Fish Farms (an aquaculture facility on Rufus Woods Reservoir) began a fish release program using Tribal funds in order to supplement the Rufus Woods rainbow trout fishery.  This project was a huge success but grew beyond the capabilities of Tribal funding.  The current Washington State record rainbow trout was caught in Rufus Woods.  In 2007 and 2008 there were more than 40,000 angler days spent fishing in Rufus Woods each year, making Rufus Woods the most popular fishing destination on the Colville Reservation.  The current bag limit is two fish per day.  In 2007 and 2008 boat anglers averaged approximately 1.6 fish per angler per day.  During some months the average fish caught exceeded two kilograms.

The FY2008 creel study indicated that angling pressure has nearly doubled while catch rates and average size have substantially declined.  FY2009 data indicate that catch rates and average fish size are continuing to decline.

Previous years' preliminary data suggest the trophy fishery and catch rates were maintained at artificially high levels due to excessive fish escapement from the aquaculture net pens located within Rufus Woods Lake and not from the Colville Tribes' fish purchases and stocking efforts.  Recently, one of the two aquaculture facilities has shutdown and the other has greatly reduced its fish escapement and excess feed drift.  As a result, the few bigger rainbow trout released by the Tribes' have been unable to sustain the high catch rates of trophy fish.  Additional studies were conducted to investigate the potential of supplementing with many smaller rainbow trout that could grow within the lake.  However, the majority of rainbow trout released into Rufus Woods Lake were found to entrain below Chief Joseph Dam before even one year of growth.  Diet and secondary production studies also indicated insufficient food resources incorporated into rainbow trout diets to produce an abundance of trophy size rainbow trout.  For these reasons, the goal of the fishery has shifted from a trophy only fishery to more balanced approach by releasing more large catchable trout (~1 lb on average) to maintain higher catch rates while still stocking several hundred trophy fish to provide the chance to catch trophy rainbow trout.

In order to ensure optimal management of this fishery, the Colville Tribes will continue a detailed creel study to determine: (1) angler effort; (2) angler success rates; (3) fish origin (entrainment through Grand Coulee Dam, net pen escapement or releases, State or Tribal fish plants or natural reproduction) caught by anglers; and (4) the most appropriate stocking times and sizes of rainbow trout to provide the best return to creel possible while maintaining a trophy potential fishery by stocking several hundred fish in excess of 3 lbs. All released fish will be externally marked to indicate hatchery origin.