by Dave Graybill, June 30, 2015

Kokanee fishing continues to be good at Lake Chelan, so don’t think that you have missed out for this year. Our area streams are already in fishing shape, and now is the time to try them.

I have been spending some of my hot summer days on Lake Chelan, still in pursuit of kokanee. There is still a good cluster of boats chasing these fish, and they are moving further and further down below Rocky Point. On my last trip I started just above the Chelan Shores condos. We started the day with a good bite, landing three nice kokanee right away. Then the schools on the screen of my depth sounder became less frequent and the only fish I marked were very deep. We got a fish or two but I continued to move us down lake. When we got just off Lakeside Park in about 40 feet of water our luck changed. We boated a dozen fish in quick succession and even got a nice cutthroat. There are still some nice 15- to 16-inch fish mixed in the catch and there are still very good numbers of kokanee to be had on Chelan. Once again Kokabow blades and spinners did the job. If your tackle store doesn’t have Kokabow gear, go to my web site and click on the ad on the Home Page. You can order right from the Kokabow site. It is great to see the kokanee off Lakeside where people are used to finding them this time of year. When they have moved this far down lake and are in this shallow water it doesn’t take sophisticated gear to catch them.

Anglers should be able to reach the schools with just a two ounce banana weight. Put a small dodger or Macks Lure Flash Lites ahead of your Kokabow spinner or a squidder and you should do just fine. When kokanee get scarce in this area, anglers have learned that they can follow them as they move back up lake. There can be good fishing for kokanee at the Yacht Club and even Mitchell Creek in late summer and early fall.

One of the lakes that I like to keep an eye on for big kokanee is Billy Clapp Reservoir, which is about 16 miles east of Soap Lake. Chad Jackson, area biologist in the Ephrata office of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, is a big fan of kokanee fishing, and was willing to give Billy Clapp at try with me. We headed there last Friday to see if the big kokanee were around this year. If they are they sure didn’t like what we offered them. Looking at the depth sounders there were a bunch of fish in Billy Clapp, but we still don’t know what they were. We didn’t get a single bite! Maybe it was the phase of the moon, the stiff breeze or something we don’t know about, but I would pass on Billy Clapp for now. So what do you do when the kokanee won’t bite?
You go fishing for smallmouth. We finished our day having fun catching smallmouth along the shores of the lake, so it wasn’t a complete bust.

I fished Omak Lake two years ago and we got a really good Fishing TV Show from our day on the water there. I had heard that it was producing good catches that included some large fish this year and I was eager to get up there and fish it. Last Thursday I did just that. Along with me was Mike McKee, owner of Mike’s Meats, his son Matt and Dan Carr, owner of Visconti’s in Leavenworth. I ran the Kingfisher down the lake to a spot that had produced well for the TV show, and we had a double on in about ten minutes. I was marking good numbers of fish at about 45 to 70 feet if I kept the boat in 80 feet of water. I was using my favorite 4-inch Needlefish on one rod. I favor the pearl with the hot pink tip. On the other was a 5-inch darting plug in a hot pink color. At one point we tried another plug, but soon went back to the one we started with. I think we only landed about 15 fish, but they were all dandies. There were a couple that were 14 to 16 inches, but we had many from 18 to 21 inches, and Matt McKee landed the big one of the day that stretched the tape to 27 inches, and Mike figured it weighed close to 10 pounds. I had a bit of wind to deal with in the morning and we had a very overcast day to start with. The wind died and the clouds disappeared for a while, and boy was it hot. We welcomed the cloud cover that moved in and a slight breeze helped cool us down. We all agreed that we would want to get back to Omak Lake for another day of “big fish” action. We were the only fishing boat on the lake. A tribal fishing license is required to fish Omak Lake and you can get a one-day permit for ten bucks at the Wal-Mart in Omak. It is just an eight-mile drive from the store to the lake, all on paved road. It amazes me that so few people fish this quality lake. The limit is three fish, with only one over 18 inches allowed. No bait is permitted and hooks must be barbless.



Here are a couple of items to mark on your calendar. There will be a free seminar night at the Central Building in Pateros on Friday, July 10th. There will be an optional dinner starting a 5 p.m. and then two presentations. Ron Oules, Reel Lentless Guide Service, will be there to talk about catching summer-run salmon on the Brewster Pool, and Jerrod Gibbons, Okanogan Valley Guide Service, will give a presentation on sockeye fishing.

On Wednesday, July 15th there will be a free seminar at Town Ford in East Wenatchee. Starting at 6 p.m. Shelby Ross, Ross Outdoor Adventures, will have a presentation on walleye fishing on Potholes Reservoir. Also appearing that night will be Keith Jensen, Big Wally’s Guide Service, who will be talking about fishing for walleye and rainbow on Rufus Woods Reservoir and Lake Roosevelt.

If you are planning on taking advantage of the huge run of sockeye returning to Lake Wenatchee, I have heard that it will open as early as July 18th and run through August 31st this year. Don’t launch your boat until after the official news release has been out, though.

FishingMagician.com