I've done well on sockeye in the past, had procured a slip on the lake, and I have lots of friends who wanted to fish the lake. We took three trips. We fished in the armada at the south tip of MI for all three trips, running red and sometimes black hooks. We tried blue for a bit, but only had one bite on them. Used my Scotty Black Box and a few other tricks as well.

On the first trip, Kevin and Tom joined me. We had to keep a driver on the wheel the whole time it was so crowded. We had our lines in the water at 6:15 and had six fish in the boat at 7:04. We cleaned fish as we putted back to the slip. You couldn't plane, there were so many boats fishing. Some people were rude and blasted right through the middle of everybody.

Didn't want to wake any wives and make them angry, so we waited until about 8:00 to call Don, who had gotten me the slip. We took him and his kids Karl and Maury out at 9:00 and had six more fish in the boat at 11:45. Don had one really nice one on that headed back to the bottom and wrapped around both downrigger cables. It broke off as we tried to unravel the mess and took my favorite dodger with it...

Met my wife at the dock and took two of my kids, Megan and Timmy, out at 1:00. It was dead for about an hour, then it started to pick up again. We had a double on at about 2:45 and them had them limited at around 3:30.

Thanks to Tom for staying with me all day and helping with the driving and the netting. With some neophytes in the boat and a combat fishery, it really helped. My back is still sore from cleaning all those fish leaning over the side of the boat, but I'm ready for another round next weekend if the chance allows! Look for my Arima with the fish flags flying!

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