First time trip to beautiful Bead lake. Bro and I were anticipating jigging up some macks, but they'd have none of it on that day. Nice public launch but very limited. Capacity about 6 rigs only, I think. We were greeted by extremely clear water and a school of Kokanee cruising in the cove were we launched. Looking back, we should've tried fishing for them. Neat, though, to see them cruising. Usually I only get to see them on my fish finder! Water so clear we could see bottom 20' down. Instead we headed out to explore the lake with the fish finder. Didn't see any fish on the bottom. Only sparsely suspended fish, near the kokes. Most suspended about 35' down in 60 - 70' of water. We tried jigging them, but hour after hour passed and we just weren't connecting. Finally decided to troll flatfish.. Had one solid hit,but didn't hook up! Figured the fish could be boat shy in this clear lake. We did catch one large pikeminnow while casting a spinner to shore. Full of crawdads. Talking to the host at the launch, learned that most of the mack and burbot are being caught in the evening and after dark. We couldn't stay that late... long trip home to account for! Water temp low 60's.

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