Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service - We fish on Lake Chelan and other North Central Washington waters in year round comfort.
You catch them in COMFORT! Bring your family and/or friends out on our 24 foot Bayliner Ciera Express. For your comfort, it features: enclosed cabin; cabin heat; private/inside marine toilet; games and VCR for children; hot and cold running water available seasonally; stove; and a full line of safety gear. Families and couples are welcomed and encouraged to book our service. The boat accommodates a maximum of six.
Large parties are accommodated. We also offer lodging at our home through VacationinChelan.com for visitors to the Manson area.
It was cold this morning. Very cold. Air temp 39. Had some frost on the boat cover. A lot of traffic too.
Light layer of fog with areas with heavier fog. Saw someone canoeing in the thick stuff in the middle of the lake. Crazy.
First 2 hours, not a single bite. Couldn't feel my hands. Even had those heating pads with me. Marked a couple of schools or something in 20-25' of water. Couldn't get anything around there to bite. Found a 3rd one, couldn't get anything to bite. After about 15 mins trying at that 3rd cluster. I saw them come up near the surface enough to see the flashes. Not sure what they were. Anyways, I pitched my DS down to where I saw the flashes. Had to have been about 15-20' there. Within a few seconds, finally feel a couple of quick light taps. I'm thinking bummer. Still set the hook though, since it's my first bite all morning. Instantly I knew from the hookset it wasn't a perch. Had to have been something a bit bigger. I start reeling it up quicker see it's a football ~13" LMB. It jumps a couple of times and threw the hook at boat side. Didn't get a good hookset since I thought it was just a panfish... lol.
Welp, that got me pumped up and excited.
I tried the shallows for a bit too, to see if anything would react, but not for me. So I continued the deeper water watching sonar for archs. Saw a couple more in about 25' that was holding onto some sort of cover. I snagged my DS on it. Tried a football and a heavy swimbait dragged slowly. Nada.
Boated to the other side and checked out fart hole really quick. Only spent 10 mins there. No bites. Drifted out deeper watching sonar and didn't see any marks either.
I stopped off at a dock that I missed a SMB from a few weeks ago. First pitched in there with the DS. Saw the line moving. Set the hook and missed. Missing bait too. Must be a tiny bugger in there. Reset and tossed it back in. Nothing. Go at it from a different angle and see the line swimming away again. Set the hook and nada. Gone is the bait again. Had enough. As I'm moving out into deeper water, I was watching the sonar and saw some archs on a hump. Or a very deep point. On the mapping, it shows as a point, but to me, with sonar and SI, it looks more like a hump. Either way, I tossed out the football first, since it was in 35' of water. Dragged it around for about 15 mins without a bite. Then dropped the DS out. After about 10 mins, I found the sweet spot and finally get a bite. Again, it was a light double tap. I'm thinking panfish, but still set the hook. Again, knew right away it was bigger than a panfish and it's fighting quite well. I get it to surface and it looked to be about a 2# SMB. Nice. I let it do a few circle motions and about to grab the net when the hook self-releases. Ugh. Oh well.
Tossed the DS back out there a catch me 3 or 4 1#s. Then I get another one a little over 2#s. Nice. This little spot held all these fishies. I continued tossing out the DS in there. Every once in a while, I kept feeling very light taps. I'm pretty confident they were panfish. Looking at sonar, it wasn't thick down there, but there were some small marks. Couldn't get those to hook up.
After the bite died down, I started exploring areas to fish next time. Looked at depths ranging from 20-40'. I don't know if it was bc of locations or high noon sun. I couldn't find any other activities in the water in those depths. Oh well, gave me a good excuse to burn off some of this gas so I don't have to drain as much.
Tough fishing, but didn't get skunked. I think next time, I'll just sleep in and avoid most of the coldness.
Yup it was slow yesterday, but I finaly got 8. Nothing over 1 1/4 pounds. All on the dropshot. The farthole didn't produce, but I caught 3 in the vicinity, 2 in one spot. Where I started I didn't even get a bite, so off to the hole, had a plan and it worked and so got those 2. Didn't make it to my #1 Smallie spot, today I'll start where I left off yesterday. It finaly warmed up.
I fished Monday thru Wednesday. Tuesday, the 11th was very good. We didn't start until 10 am. Found fish deep and barely moved. All on DS. I kept thinking they would get spooked, but kept picking up good fish - biggest was 19", but several almost that big. We had some about 14" also, but very active fishing. Never had fast action like that since spawn time. I saw fish jumping next to some docks in the area, but didn't have time to go explore. Hard to move when the bite was that good. Left about 2:30 when things slowed down. All smallies, never had anything else jump on.
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Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service - We fish on Lake Chelan and other North Central Washington waters in year round comfort.
You catch them in COMFORT! Bring your family and/or friends out on our 24 foot Bayliner Ciera Express. For your comfort, it features: enclosed cabin; cabin heat; private/inside marine toilet; games and VCR for children; hot and cold running water available seasonally; stove; and a full line of safety gear. Families and couples are welcomed and encouraged to book our service. The boat accommodates a maximum of six.
Large parties are accommodated. We also offer lodging at our home through VacationinChelan.com for visitors to the Manson area.
