Had intentions to go to Alder Lake for the first time this year but found a turn signal out on the trailer and decided to stay closer to home. Loaded up the oldest of our 3 dogs for some 1 on 1 time with the old guy and had poles in the water on Summit by 7:30. Beautiful calm morning with an eagle hunting and rainbows jumping at bugs. Had trouble with the I pilot shutting on and off then found a loose battery cable hook-up that had been arcing and starting to melt the cable. Yikes! Lesson learned, easy fix but lost some trolling time. Fished various colors with no luck for the first 2 hours. Marked lots of fish at 25-30 ft but wanted to stay deeper to avoid trout. At one point I dropped to 30 ft and had a 10 inch bow on 10 seconds later. Luckily he wiggled off at the boat. A guy could reach his legal limit quick at Summit with 5 combined allowed. I needed to dodge the layer of shallow trout and stay committed to my 40 -45 ft range that has been working here for me. All those marks on the Garmin can be so tempting!

Then the weather changed to cloudy with a light wind and a shower or two. I switched from bright pinks, orange and yellow to darker tones green and purple. I've been using various wedding rings and today went to the Kokabow line. Hoochies have not worked well for me here. Dodgers and 8 in leads with snubbers. Soaked shoepeg corn in a mix of bloody tuna oil and bloody tuna super gel overnight. That was apparently the right move as 10 min later I landed my first, a healthy 13 in. I marked the spot on the Garmin and pounded that exact spot and in 4 more loops I was done. 5 for 5 within a 100 ft radius. I netted them from the side of the boat instead of from the stern since I was solo and that seemed to work well but they sure were feisty! Had my limit by 11am but they were all caught in the last hour. Kept speed in the money spot at 1.2 mph. You can see the mark on my gps that was productive.

That's been the story for me at this lake. Kokes seem concentrated in very small areas, they are picky on colors, and you need to get down to 40-45 ft or deeper to avoid limiting out on stocked rainbows. Wedding rings outperform hoochies. Just my 2 cents. I would have given it a five star but 1 koke was just over 11 in, my dog got a little wet because I didn't put the Bimini up and I almost set my trolling battery on fire. Still had a great time! Good luck out there!

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