Today’s day off was dedicated to catching some kokanee with my wife on Stevens. We had the boat in the water and gear down at 5:30am. Conditions for today were pretty good, partly cloudy/partly sunny, light breeze, 50s climbing nicely as the morning progressed. We had about a half dozen boats out there to share the lake with – gotta love weekday fishing!

Our routine of four rods running on two downriggers, staggering depths and varying gear was followed. This trip I tried more stuff besides hoochie type gear and we did a little better. All gear had corn and fake maggots for attractors. The tallies:

5:40 – caught 12” at 35 ft on silver dodger and bubblegum hoochie.
5:54 – bite at 45 ft on silver dodger and a wedding ring
6:00 – small trout caught on surface while hooking up release.
6:31 – caught 12” fish at 45ft on silver dodger and wedding ring
7:56 – lost one at 35ft, close to boat, thrasher. Silver dodger, bubble gum hoochie
8:08 – caught at 35 ft, another 12ish inch fish, silver dodger, BG hoochie
9:36 bite at 35 ft, silver dodger, BG hoochie
10:50 – caught at 70 ft, a nice 14.5” fish on a silver dodger and a WannafishaLure Glided Lily (love the action and looks of this rig!)
11:45 – bite at 50ft, silver dodger, BG hoochie.

Total in the cooler for today - 4.

As you can see, the bubblegum hoochie is still the most effective for me, but other rigs started to produce. I had zero luck with sling blades, everything wanted the silver dodger (small one)

The 14.5 fish was crazy! The fish jumped a good two feet into the air and JoAnn netted the fish like a butterfly, totally out of the water. Funniest thing I’ve seen in quite a while.

Off the water at 12:30.

---