My friend from work and his son joined me for our first trip to Baker Lake for Sockeye 2011. We arrived at Swift Creek Camp Ground at 4:20 am and the boat launch parking lot was already full. Amazing! After launching I parked alongside the launch parking area knowing there would be many others to follow who would be parking in far worse places so I was okay with it.

After the short run in the dark to Noisy Creek, our lines were in the water with about 30 other boats. Soon there would be about 250 boats joining us. Over the next 7 hours I managed two nice keepers at about 5 pounds each and a third fish that measured 17 inches and was safely released. We had three other takedowns, two getting off almost immediately after the strike and the third, also a nice keeper, my buddy had to the boat before he spit the hook. Fishing was very tough so missing those three was painful!

The trip itself was a 5, very nice weather and calm waters, but the bite was a 1 or 2 tops. I was very disappointed with the bite which was nearly nonexistent after reading the successful opening weekend reports. Over the 7 hours we fished, we saw a few fish caught here and there but nobody was knockin em dead by any means, at least not that we saw. Hopefully more fish will be released into Baker soon and the bite will pick up.

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