paraphrasing w.l.s. churchill: "nevah in the course of human fishing have so few thrown back so many".

launched from a just reopened Porcupine bay and headed up river, which was 12-13' down, not the end of my comfort zone, but getting closer. Air was really bad due to residual smoke and the further up river we went the uglier it got - a lot of really nice places on the south bank are no more and the land and trees really scorched - pretty easy to see where it jumped the river near the #1 can - a lot of cattle standing in the water on the north bank. Water temp ranged 66-68 all day in the Spokane arm - a little warmer in the big lake yet.

Went above the #5 can and started the troll - purple/dark red smile and slow death to start the day in cloudyto partly sunny conditions and as the clouds moved on switched to anything green, smile or decorated colorado blades, slow death or #2 hooks, didn't make any difference - went through over 3 doz wormsthrowing back hungry dinks in the 9-14" range - wishing them well and warning we'll be back later when they grow up. Kept some nice ones from 15-21" and left by noon. On the return to the ramp we slowed down in the narrows to see what, if anything, was lurking in the depths - saw a bunch of fish suspended in the 55-75" area - getting too warm so didn't stop to try and catch one of them. Did see a boat using downriggers trolling and talked to them later at the cleaning station - they only caught one trout, probably a koke, at the 15' level - it was in really bad shape, but the guy said it was the only thing they caught all day so they were keeping it - far be it from me to question another man's motives - another team of two arrived at the cleaning station as we were leaving - another single koke, same condition - end of the road so to speak. Wife beat me again - first fish, last fish, most fish - at least I got the biggest one, which still did not change who got to clean them - always glad to see her have a good day though.

I've never caught a white fish up the arm or in the lake at anytime, but considering the amount of fish on the scope and the depth sure seemed to indicate the possibility - I can't believe that there were that many kokes headed up river to spawn at that depth, so I'd be interested it anybody out there has any experience with these fish at this time of year.

Lakefisher

9/15/2016 8:56:00 PM

I've been up to buoy 5 at water level 1254 with my fiberglass boat. Water levels are arround 1278 right now, piece of cake. At 1254 it was pretty sketchy though, I would definitely not go any lower than that for sure.

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