By divine good luck I manager to get a Saturday free to hit Baker lake for sockeye. Pretty excited, I was joined by Randy Rausher and we headed up Friday afternoon, leaving early enough to avoid the major traffic. That said, it still took 2 ½ hours to drive the 110 miles from my house, way too long! We managed to get the boat on the water in order to fish the evening bite before anchoring up the boat for the night and meeting Barry Dubnow Saturday morning to join us.

Friday evening conditions were pretty calm so we ran from Panorama Point to the dam and then fished back heading north. It was pretty quiet at the dam, marked a few fish. Mid lake we found a spot that was holding more fish. We saw one boat catch a couple but no luck for us.

We fished standard sockeye gear this trip, focusing on 25-50 feet deep water. We ran four rods Friday evening and six rods Saturday, running two planer boards which worked out very well.

We anchored up the boat across from the Swift Creek boat launch - a mistake I won’t do again, being awakened at 4am to way too many anxious anglers…

Barry showed up on time (thank you Barry) and we were off and fishing at 5am. From then until 12:30 we threw everything we had at them. We saw fish caught, not in great numbers but good enough to keep our hopes up. Alas, it was not our day. Not one solid bite all day, ouch.

I will say, Randy and Barry are first rate fishing buddies, into the sport and possessing a dedication to the craft which I really appreciate. Nice fishing with you guys, we’ll get em next time!