Two 5 start trips in a row! Not getting out on the water often but when the opportunity is there it has been epic. This trip was almost a no trip. We went to a concert at the Mount Baker Theater in Bellingham Saturday evening and got home late. Add the fact that I had not slept much this week I figured that Sunday would be a sleep in day. Unfortunately, or maybe that is fortunately my body clock went off about 4:00 and I was up shortly thereafter. I made coffee, puttered around for a while and read some but still not considering going fishing. It was heading towards 6:00 and I was out of “need to dos” so what the heck why not go fishing? I tried to pry the wife out of bed but my attempt didn’t spark the appropriate level of enthusiasm so it looked like it would be a solo trip.

A short while later lunch was made, the boat was hitched up behind the truck and I was ready to roll. Ummm…, to where? I considered Lake Samish, Lake Whatcom or Lake Cavanaugh. For various reasons I settled on Cavanaugh and headed up the hill. The drive was pleasant but uneventful and a short while later I rolled into the little gravel launch area and prepared to launch. There were already three other trailers and a couple cartopper rigs and I was thinking that I managed to miss the early bite. A short while later I was motoring up a dead calm lake while admiring the beautiful morning.

Throttle pulled back, kicker down it was time to fish. There were smallish fish jumping everywhere and numerous fish on the meter, it looked like it was going to be a good morning. I rigged the gear and got one downrigger deployed. I was just setting the clip on the other side when the first rigger pops and I’m fish on. It went that way for about ½ hour, lots of drive-bys but only one fish box. Thinking that something had to change I swapped the gear out and had one rigger at depth when WHAM-O it pops, the rod goes bendo and line is just smoking off the reel. I pick the rod up and whatever was at the other end of the line was solid. The fish never slowed and took the reel down to the knot eventually breaking my 8 # top shot. Don’t know what it was, and we had the same thing happen at Cavanaugh a couple years ago. It certainly got the old ticker going and set a nice stage for the next few hours. I had consistent if not feverish action until I had both my kokanee and trout limits on the boat. I enjoyed numerous doubles to include a combined kokanee and trout double to wrap up the day.

I ran a few different setups but instead of running through all the gear I soaked. The hot rig of the day was one of my green Dick Night spinners (Yes spinner, not spoon, I hack the welded rings off and use them for spinner blades). The spinner was running about 8” behind a green Poulsen Cascade Arrow Flash dodger. My setback from the clip was about 30’ and I tried to maintain .8-1.1 MPH. I caught fish from 23’ to 49’ but the 33’ was the go to depth for the morning. I was using old frozen tuna corn to tip the hooks with. Not much more to say about the gear, once I had it dialed in it was HAMMER TIME!

It was an incredible morning on Lake Cavanaugh. In fact, I hadn’t even had a chance to eat my lunch so after everything was stowed, I ate my lunch while leisurely cruising around the lake. I think that I have said this before, Cavanaugh is a special place. World class fishing in a scenic setting, does it get better than that?