I had a chance to get in a last lick on the sockeye season on Lake Wenatchee last week. I also enjoyed a nice day fishing with my wife. Earlier in the week, I had a chance to check out the fishing on Rufus Woods for triploid rainbow trout.
I got a note on last Saturday that my friends Rollie Schmitten and Jim Passage were going to celebrate the end of the Lake Wenatchee sockeye season, by spending a few hours fishing on August 31st. He invited me to come along, and I was eager to join them. The three of us have been fishing Lake Wenatchee sockeye for more years than I can recall, although usually on our separate boats. We would check in with each other during the morning to see how each of us were doing. We were often on different areas of the lake, and would report if we were catching fish, and what depth we were fishing, what color hooks were working, and so on. In the past, the three of us have shared many other fishing adventures, including fishing for steelhead on the Columbia River and for the Lahontan cutthroat on Omak Lake. While on the boat that morning we made plans to fish Rufus Woods for rainbow and Buffalo Lake for kokanee later this month. As many of you know, the sockeye fishing was very tough this season on Lake Wenatchee. Why is still a mystery. I landed about half the number of fish than I did last year, which was better than a whole lot of folks. I still had a great time taking family members out, and I sent a bunch of fresh sockeye home with my daughter. She has more sockeye in her freezer than I do! Rollie, Jim and I had a good morning on Lake Wenatchee. It was dead calm, and we landed three nice sockeye in a couple of hours near Rollie’s place on the lake. We counted just four other boats on the lake. This week’s photo is of the three of us in front of Rollie’s home.
Thursday was our 24th anniversary and my wife wanted to hit two lakes to celebrate. We first launched on Lake Chelan at the city launch above the dam, only to discover that the Bob Feil Boats & Motors Smoker Craft Boats Phantom didn’t fit under the bridge! I swear we launched here at the same time of the month last year and didn’t have an issue. So, we turned around, pulled the boat and headed to her second choice, which was Roses Lake. We hadn’t fished Roses for years and have great memories of our times on the water here. I wanted to catch some bluegill to show folks what size they were. When the screen on the Garmin filled with fish I put the Minn Kota on Spot Lock. We got a few in one of my usual spots at the top end and then fired up the Mercury Marine 250 and headed to the bottom end of the lake. I decided to look for fish by trolling. I put out the Kokabow blades and spinners we were going to use for kokanee and immediately started catching bluegill. I kept the trolling gear on, baited with scented corn and caught a nice rainbow, and to top it off got a dandy crappie, too. We had a wonderful time on Roses Lake!
Anglers are sharpening their hooks to prepare for the opening of fall salmon fishing above Priest Rapids Dam on September 1st. When I looked at the most recent dam counts, though, it appears that there won’t be many fish there to greet them. The fall fish are arriving later than last year, but they are supposed to come in better numbers than last season. Be patient, there is good fishing ahead for fall salmon. There is more good news for anglers this fall. About 100,000 steelhead have been counted at Bonneville Dam since July 1st. The tally is well ahead of the 67,500 fisheries managers predicted and bodes well for anglers. That the run is zooming past the preseason forecast is good news and likely signals the fish found good feeding conditions in the Pacific Ocean over the last 12 months. Chris Donley, fish program manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at Spokane, said the A-run fish appear to be returning in a more traditional pattern this year where about 70% of them have been in salt water for a year and 30% for two years. Some recent years have seen the run tilt heavily toward older fish.
I had a plan and two willing fishing partners, so I hooked up the Smoker Craft and headed for Rufus Woods. I picked up Tom Verschueren in Dryden and Dennis Beich came up from Moses Lake and met us at Big Wally’s. As we drove along Banks Lake we couldn’t help but notice that the water level was way down. That was a concern for the second part of the plan, but we continued up to the launch at the middle net pens. I fired up the Mercury Marine 250 and ran up to the upper net pens and when I saw a good number of fish on the bottom on the screen of the Garmin, I deployed the Minn Kota. Dennis and Tom were casting ½-ounce sliding sinkers with Power Bait molded onto size 2 hooks. Initially they were finding it difficult to find bottom in the current, but Tom soon figured it out. He started landing fish so fast that we took the hot rod away from him and had he and Dennis switch places. Soon Dennis and I landed enough fish to finish our limits. I hooked and lost a nice triploid on a jig on my third cast. The next time I fish here I am only going to fish with jigs. That will allow us to be selective with what we keep. There is no chance of releasing a fish when they swallow the bait so deep. It isn’t legal anyway. The second part of the plan was walleye fishing at Banks Lake, which was a bust. We fished the hump off of Steamboat Rock, and then the clay banks. Dennis and I just got perch bites, and Tom got his bait picked. It started to rain, so we packed it in.
