After striking out on two days fishing the Columbia River Gorge for Kings I decided to give the Brewster pool one last shot. I dropped the kayak in the Okanogan. Water temps at the mouth of the river are 70 F, substantially cooler than several weeks ago. Many Chinook and Sockeye could be observed staged in the lower river as the thermal barrier is beginning to break down and the fish are prepping to run into Canada.

Once I entered the pool I marked large school of salmon in 25-50' of water and starting trolling the edge of the shelf. I was running a LEO chrome flasher with a "Wildfire" superbait. Perhaps 5 minutes into my troll the rod explodes into life. I just can't get over how vicious strikes on these lures are. After a fun filled battle I netted a nice 9 lb hen that I promptly bonked and bled.

I trolled for another 30 minutes and decided to head over to Alta Lake where I found a quick limit of kokanee .

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