This is a report about the one that got away…

My friend Robbie and I got the green light to go do an overnight fishing adventure. I had a plan in place and was (pretty much) ready to execute it. As luck would have it the plan changed, all because of a fish.

Plan in place… fish Cle Elum Day 1, run over to Keechelus and fish in the evening, camp, and fish Keechelus again the second morning. Pasky Plans are made to be changed and when we got to Cle Elum around 10:30 the plan changed as soon as we visited with an angler coming in. There in his catch bag were two nice lakers in the 6-8 pound range. Robbie had never caught a laker before so I told him “time to get you your first laker”. I had brought a couple appropriate rods and some cured prawns so off we went at around 10:30am.

We ran down to the dam end of the lake first and pounded the water for about a couple hours. Two rods were rigged for fishing five feet off the bottom, using large hoochies, over-sized Mack’s smile blade, and a chunk of prawn on the inside hook. This was the rig I used a few years ago that caught my piggie laker (check out the video on our YouTube page) - Clem Elum Lake Mackinaw and Kokanee at Cle Elum so I figured maybe lightening would strike twice. Little did I know…

We found no action at the dam end and also, BTW, no kokanee or sockeye action (sockeye would have to be released). We were running two kokanee rods in the 40-50 foot water column using kokanee gear.
With no love at the dam end and it getting a bit breezy we ran up to a spot I like on the north end of the lake that has a long shelf of 70-78 feet depth. It was here that we started having success.

Our first fish of the day actually came off a kokanee rod, around 50 feet deep, a very small laker that was bleeding so we kept him. Catching that fish set off a light bulb and I switched the kokanee fly to a 4” rapala stick bait on a 4 foot leader to a small Mack’s Double D dodger. Unlike Lake Chelan, macks at Cle Elum do tend to suspend, although hitting bottom is always best.

After my little guy the starboard deep rod pops and then doubles over. Robbie was looking away so I calmly said “Robbie, wanna catch a laker – grab that rod”. The fish on the other end was a real bulldog, pulling line (something you don’t see a lot of), head shaking, and generally giving Robbie a great fight. He worked the fish up to within sighting range and I could see a nice fish just under the surface – I’m going to guess around ten pounds. About that time Robbie said the dreaded curse “I’m going to catch my first laker!” “Not so fast my friend, it’s not in the net yet”. Sure enough, as the fish got close to the boat it made a quick move and momentarily crossed the kokanee rod line – just enough to release pressure on the line – and off the fish swam.

I don’t know who was more bummed, Robbie or I. It was a nice fish that got away. And it also changed our plans. I decided we would pound the water and darn it get Robbie his first laker!

As luck would have it, Robbie got his first laker, another suspended fish off the kokanee rod at around 55 feet deep. Not the monster he lost but hey, it was his first laker INTO THE BOAT!

Later in the afternoon I got to battle and catch a beautiful rainbow trout. That was it. The end of the day saw us tired and sun burned. And it renewed my desire to go out again to do battle with Cle Elum’s lakers. I guess that’s the sign of good day fishing, when you can’t wait to go out and try again!

The lake is being drawn down but there is still a bit of ramp left at the boat launch. Bigger boats will be challenged soon so now’s the time to give the lake a try. The camping there is closed this year, by the way.

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