I had not fished Lake Chelan since this past spring. My goal was to go for a multispecies day but primarily focus on bringing home a limit of Kokanee. I launched from the kayak and jigged up a few small Mackinaw on the points from there up to the south end of the saddle south of the Yacht Club. Bored with yanking 3 lb trout up from 150' I switched over to trolling for Kokanee. I had only marked a few fish and most of those were hanging below the thermocline at 75'.

I dropped two rods with dropper rigs over the side of the kayak running 4 oz and 6 oz both at 100'. I trolled less than a hundred yards and immediately hooked up with a double. Two fat 14" fish rolled over the rails and into the catch bag. Back to trolling I trolled up lake towards the Yacht Club but only picked up one more fish so I rolled back to where I started and started doing figure eights. I saw some surface activity during a quite wind period. I pulled one rod to the surface and immediately caught a few Cutthroat. I didn't want Cutties so I dropped it back down. I picked up 4 more fish before stronger northwest winds began to develop. and I decided to start making the 3 mile troll back to the state park.

I hugged the north bank trolling in 150-200' of water. I found one more Kokanee along the way and caught and released a small Chinook. At the north end of Manson Bay I cut across the lake. Just north of the park I picked up my last two Kokanee to complete my limit.

Paulina Peak Tackle Big I dodgers in orange pearl crush and pink/moon jelly paired with orange or purple microhoochies or green uv splatter spinners tipped with corn produced all the fish. Orange was the hot color, followed by green, then purple. I didn't mark any Kokanee above 75' but even without downriggers these fish are still easily accessible to anglers. I put together a quick video on how I use droppers to target these deepwater Kokanee. I hope it opens opportunities up for those who don't have downriggers.

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