Enjoyed the pictures. Do have one question however. Why don't you do more catch and release since the state recommends that only one meal (8 oz) of these lake trout, because of contaminates in Lake Chelan, be eaten each month. These, fish even vacuum packed, won't have a good quality for very long. Wouldn't it be better to release and turn Lake Chelan in to a trophy lake trout situation like they have back East? You would in the long run make more money chartering your services. I would pay to catch a 20# fish! Just what it is worth department. Thanks for listening.

There are actually some pretty good biological as well as practical reasons for the catch and retain fishery here. Read the article that I put together to explain it all. It is posted here on WashingtonLakes.com. I also did a fairly lengthy explanation regarding the advisory. There should be a pretty good explanation of the science involved. The short course is the data was flawed and skewed. Even with that the DOE recommended no more than 1 per week. The WDFW decided to "be safe" and placed the one per month advisory in the regs. The DOE collected fish from right where the agricultural effluent comes into the Lake and ground up the skin and all to obtain their data... Also, remember the limiting factor here is food. If we harvest many of the smaller fish there is actually a better chance of growing bigger fish. This is an Oligtrophic lake. I hope that explains it.

I agree that sometimes the data is a bit inaccurate due to the fact that the whole fish is ground up guts and all. Last time I cleaned fish the guts and carcass went into the garden.

Thanks for your response. Had to look up "Oligrophic". It is too bad that we are poisoning our waters all over the world. Pretty much the only fish we eat is what I bring back from Alaska, caught in pristine waters (Salmon and Halibut). If I catch it, I can control how it is handled. Immediately bled and cleaned (I'm amazed at the low percentage of fishermen who don't bleed their fish), iced down quickly, and frozen as soon as possible. LS

Sorry "High number of fishermen who don't bleed their fish"

In addition to what Anton said-
The level of contaminates observed in a fish is based on putting the whole fish in the blender, then measuring. They did the same with perch in Lake Washington. If you just took a clean filet of the perch (less the skin, fat and viscera where the contaminates tend to accumulate) the contaminates are a fraction of what the entire fish contains, as a percentage and in real numbers. With the macks, you just need to filet them out, careful to carve off the fat, and make sure to peel the skin and the mud line (darker colored flesh along the lateral line) off of the filet before serving. I either bake them or grill them using salmon recipies. These 4-8# fish are one of the best-tasting trout out there - eating the mysis shrimp really colors up these fish's flesh to a salmon-like orange/red. I have caught several 4-5#'s that had meat as red as a sockeye - no exaggeration. I just took my last filet out of the freezer from last October's run, and it was as good as the day I put it in there (vacuum sealed). As WAcatcher said, bleed your fish! When I get one on board, I'll bonk it, bleed it (cut right at the base of the gills - you'll know it when you hit the artery) and let it set in the splashwell for a few minutes while I re-set my gear. Then I gut it, pack the cavity with ice and stack it carefully in my cooler (all like a salmon troller), and it will keep for the whole day - even in the over-100 deg days in Aug. End of day, I filet them at the Manson launch, back in the cooler for the ride home, where they get vacuum packed and are frozen for however long it takes me to get them eaten up.
To wrap this up - Anton is generous with the knowledge, but it really takes some knowledge to get on these fish quickly and get them in the cooler. If you want to learn the fishery, spend a day (or a half) with him on the lake. He is a wealth of knowledge and will help you out. I was having on again/off again success with these fish until Anton and I ran into each other last summer at the Manson fish cleaning station - he got me squared away on a few things, and I've been doing pretty well since. Thanks Anton!