Photos
Details
One last Hurrah! I got to take my son Matt and DIL Veronica fishing for sockeye on Lake Wenatchee. They were visiting from Montana and didn’t balk at the 3am wake up call so we hit the road. We arrived around 5am and there was no line so launching and parking was a breeze. Speaking of breeze, it wasn’t near as windy as last trip, but there was still a wind blowing and by the end of the day good old white caps were all around us. But weather-wise it wasn’t bad, with cool temps to begin and canvas top up by 10:30 to get shelter from the hot sun.
We ran over to the southwest corner of the lake after giving a shout out to Shane Moon of Moon’s Guide Service. He had a group of anglers out and reported that the lake was still fishing well, with fresh fish showing up even now.
We were able to run four rods today. I ran the DR rods at 85 and 95-105 feet and then ran stackers of DD dodgers on each cable, using a shower curtain slider and 6 oz of weight to take the clip down the DR cable. After a fish hits the shower clip drops the release to the ball and next time I pull up gear I retrieve it. It’s a great way to stack, very slick. I’m pretty much down with clipping a second release into my cable.
We had lines running by 5:40 and our first fish hit immediately but didn’t stick, a “drive by”. First fish in the boat came at 6:15, 85 feet deep. This proved to be the most popular depth today, but we caught fish ranging from 75 to 105 feet deep (another popular depth). The DR main line had a “O” dodger on one line and a “O” sling blade on the other. I started the sling blade with some extra glitter, spinning blades, in front of the blade but this set up had no love. Removed the extra glitter and it started working. I kept all the terminally gear simple, either two or three hooks, in multi colors (red, pink, and orange) or straight red. Leader lenghts a short 8-12". One set up had a smile blade, but every rod got bit at least a couple times, nice to see.
We had a pretty good bite up until 8am, and then it tapered off to a fish here or there. We also had a couple lost fish at the “witching hour” which for me has always been 11am on this lake. We saw other boats having success all morning. Not red hot, but it wasn’t bad.
Since I had to work the next day we called it at 11:30, ending up with seven fish to clean. We lost 4-5 fish. Matt and Veronica had a great time and I got to show off another beautiful Washington lake and take them for a ride in my new boat. Murphy, their new dog, did great and seemed to be enjoying himself. We only had to make one shore stop.
The fish are very colored now. Of the seven we brought home, two had red flesh and I vacu-sealed these, the other five are smoker material. They aren’t in bad shape, but don’t reach my standard for fresh fish to cook. So if you want to get some late season sockeye at this point figure they will likely be smoker fish, but you may also find some nice ones mixed in.
Comments
Why is this comment inappropriate?
Delete this comment? Provide reason.
