Given that I'd never fished this lake before we did a quick explore of the launch ramp on Friday afternoon. There were lots of kayaks there and almost no people. I suppose the cool weather kept a lot of folks off the water Friday. The ramp appeared in good shape and the lake was intriguing with its sheer cliff walls.
On Saturday I was on breakfast detail so fishing had to wait until mid-day. I took my son's friend Nora out for a day on the boat and targeted kokanee based on reports from Salmonbarry and others.
Went with the pink splatter Dick Nite dodger and metallic pink Spin-N-Glo tipped with shoe peg corn. There were some numbers marked on the canyon walls and I found the fishing best between numbers 4 & 5. The water was pretty clear so I had to use crazy-long triple digit set backs to induce the fish to bite. Problem with this scenario is that there was so much stretch in the line it was next to impossible to get a solid hook set.
So, for the day, I had probably 20+ take downs with numerous long releases. Most of the fish that I got close enough to the boat to see, including 4 of 5 fish landed, were RBT. I had one koke of about 10" - 11" jump and spit the hooks just before we got it to net.
All RBT were smallish 9"- 10" class and all were C & R. The one koke the we boated was only about 7" so it was C & R as well.
On Saturday with the nicer weather the single-lane ramp area was packed and there were lots of folks who clearly are not used to boat ramp etiquette so if you're in a hurry to get in or out of the water during peak usage hours this is a place to avoid.
This was an interesting lake and I'll be back to learn more about it next time we camp at Sun Lakes!