It was great to see a bunch of anglers out on the water this past Memorial Weekend. There was the usual bottlenecks at the boat launches, but that is typical as many folks are making their first fishing trips of the year with their boats. I hope you all had a safe and enjoyable time in the outdoors.

Brian Anantatmula and his wife Melinda were going to be in Moses Lake last Friday, so I hooked up the Smoker Craft and drove down to meet them. We launched at Peninsula Park, and I drove the boat over to what is called either Goat or Gaileys Island. Neither of them had ever fished for bass and Brian and I have talked about doing a bass trip for years. My friends and I had just been there recently and caught a bunch of smallmouth and largemouth bass, so I figured it would be a good place to introduce them to bass fishing. I stopped at the bottom end of the island and deployed the Minn Kota and set it at a slow speed. I rigged them up with lizards and Baby Brush Hogs and they started casting to the shore. Brian caught both smallmouth and largemouth bass when we got to the east side of the island. Melinda was new to using a spinning reel, but she soon got her casting down and landed a nice smallmouth. Although it was Friday of Memorial Weekend, we were away from the crowds and enjoyed a warm and calm afternoon on the water and got some nice fish. This week’s photo is of Brian and Melida after our day of bass fishing. There are photos of the fish they caught on the Fishing Magician.com Facebook page.

On Wednesday, Tom Verschueren, James Lebow and I hit a perfect day to be on Chelan before Memorial Weekend. We launched the Smoker Craft Phantom at the launch above the dam and got the last parking slot. While motoring through the NO Wake Zone we set up the Scotty downriggers and lead ball rods with four ounce sinkers and were ready to go. The Garmin showed kokanee at just 50 feet, near the Red Roofs, so I deployed the Minn Kota Ulterra and set our speed at 1.2 mph. I put the lead ball rigs out 70 feet and the riggers were set at 50 feet, and we had fish on immediately. We continued to troll in an area that had us in 60 to 90 feet of water and all the rods were going off at a good clip. As you probably know, the kokanee are smallish this year, but it is terrific fun. This would be a great year to take the kids out. They wouldn’t be bored! Tom is going to smoke his catch. He does a great job with his smoker. James is going to can his, and I love making my wife fish cakes made from kokanee. Yum!

I have been fishing with my friend Jim Passage for many years, and he is very generous. Back when we had steelhead seasons, he would treat me to a guided fly fishing trip on the Methow River. We had many great days floating the river and catching steelhead with his favorite guide Jeff Brazda. The past few years he has taken me to a private lake that is managed by Darc Knobel at the Desert Fly Shop in Ephrata. The 40 acre lake is loaded with rainbow, and we have a blast trolling flies up there. Jim takes his 14 foot Lund with an electric motor, and we cruised around the lake landing rainbow up to 21 inches on our last trip. I always snap a photo or two, and one of my favorites was taken last year. It shows Jim happily reeling in a nice fish—while it was snowing! We never seem to run out of things to talk about, and that’s the best part of these trips. I seldom spend enough time visiting with good friends, and these fishing trips are a great way for us to get caught up and share recent events in our lives. Thanks Jim!

I wanted to give everyone a heads up on a couple of the derbies that are coming up later on this summer. I ran into Mike Mauk, who organizes the Brewster King Salmon Derby, and he let me know that they are already receiving registrations. The derby will take place the first weekend in August, as usual. Due to the uncertainty of the Chinook salmon season this year, the derby will most likely be a sockeye derby, which means lots of fish will be caught. Sockeye were the biggest attraction to the Brewster Pool last year and are expected to be again this season. Anglers can go to BrewsterKingSalmonDerby.com and register online. People need to plan early for this one and make arrangements for hotels or camping in the area. Also, coming up on Father’s Day weekend is the 33rd Annual Pike Minnow Derby, conducted by the East Wenatchee Rotary Club. There are some significant changes that anglers should be aware of about this derby. Primarily, there will be cash payouts for the pike minnows turned into pay stations on the Columbia River. Those interested can go to www.EWRotary.org and fill out a form to register.

When I stopped for fuel in Moses Lake, someone approached me to say how much the videos I post had helped him. He recently retired and now makes trips over here with this family to fish the areas that I show in the videos. When I was launching the Smoker Craft on Moses Lake, another young angler was just coming off the water, and he, too, wanted to thank me. He said the video I did on fishing crank baits made a real difference with this walleye fishing. He and his fishing partner had landed 13 walleye that day, all on crank baits. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate hearing from anglers who like what I do and urge me to keep it up. I just posted a short video on Lake Chelan kokanee fishing, and I take the time to point out several landmarks to help anglers find fish. I also recently posted a video on bass fishing on Moses Lake and tell people where I am fishing and where the nearby boat launches are. Last year I posted videos on many of the lakes in Grant County, and there are others focused on Moses Lake. I hope all of you enjoy them