Well it was back to Baker Lake for a few hours of chasing Sockeye. Let me first say, I should have stuck with my own advice. I get in the habit of always experimenting and not sticking with the routine. For that my boat mate and I paid the price of some pretty tough fishing (sorry about that). The advice was to stay shallow, within the top 20 feet of water and stick with the Silver Creek area. The problem was that it it was crowded (90 boats and I try to avoid the crowds thinking that there are always fish elsewhere) and most of the meter marks were single fish running deep. We should have stuck it out but we only made a pass or two, fishing deep and then moved on to find other fish. Eventually we located fish willing to bite but at that point our fishing window was closing and we had to head back down the hill.

Running bare red hooks or my sockeye flies, both with smiley blades behind 50/50 “0” dodgers we explored various areas of the lake, including Noisy Creek, Silver Creek and a couple locations in the middle of the east arm of the lake. We never really saw schooled fish but did see a number of single or double sockeye marks on the meter. We chased meter marks and the effort played out for the couple fish we did put in the boat. Again we should have fished shallow, sticking with the 15-20’ range but sometimes it is difficult to stick with your own advice. Today it did seem that the fish wanted a faster trolling speed, maybe 1.2-1.4 mph but we didn’t catch enough fish to confirm the observation or otherwise. Our highlight of the day was a fish pushing almost 12 pounds.

When we arrived back at the launch the PSE truck had just dumped a load of fish in the lake and they were puddling up everywhere. Light bulb on, I am going to start bringing my fly rod! In spite of our tough fishing we had a great morning on the water and look forward to our next trip to Baker Lake. One final note: It looks as though our old boat has found a good home. The new owners are taking care of her and have made a few well thought out improvements. It is good to know that the boat is being taken care of and I wish the new owners many fond memories.

---