I'd heard about the kokanee on this lake being a source for kokanee fry throughout Washington and was interested to give it a try. With rseas on board and NWFR writer Hanna Pennebaker and film assistant Robbie Sy we set off at a lazy 8am in search of kokanee at the south end of the lake. Before launching, my boat was properly inspected for invasive species. We were given the green light and off we went.

The weather turned out to be much better than expected and conditions were very tolerable for late April in the Pacific NW. Unfortunately, we probably were a tad early for this fishery. While we got a far number of konaee (and many more dutthroat, including some nice ones), we didn't get the buckets full of kokanee numbers I expected. Rest assured though, rseas says later in the season you will see many more kokanee caught. They aren't huge - 8-10" now, later in the season they should be running 10-12".

We ended up with around a dozen koks, losing as many, and lots of released cutthroat (they are protected on the lake).

The south end of the lake is beautiful, wooded hills, very wild looking, totally opposite of the north end which is developed. Definitely a lake to consider in the coming months!

---