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Back to back 5-star trips, yup! Saturday morning my friend Andy and I both had a morning free so we decided to go fishing. When I picked him up at 4:00 I still wasn’t sure what direction we were heading. I had gear in the truck and boat for both the salt or lake fishing. After a brief discussion we decided to head up the hill to a local lake to check out a few WDFW management rumors.

Up front I want to say that in the past I have got more than my share of grief for “blowing up” a fishing spot. I don’t get it but, in this case I posted this report as a secret lake. Access is a bit limited and a crowd would not be appreciated by the locals. I apologize but the people that already fish it will know where it is and I hope the rest of you can figure it out. That said, on to our fishing report.

We launched around 5:00 and were fishing by 5:30. Initially the FF was a desert but we stayed on course looking for a meter mark or out first take down. At about 5:40 one of the rods started dancing and the party was on. From that point on we had 1, 2 or even triples going until 1:00 when we called it quits and headed home. To assure that we complied with the WDFW rules for using bait while trout fishing; within ½ hour we had to stop using bait and clean all the scent off our gear. We continued fishing, releasing most fish up until my pumpkin time.

The fishing was nothing short of spectacular. Even though we both have out 2 pole endorsements we decided to run only two downriggers and a center lead line. We ran a variety of ArrowFlash dodgers followed by a number of different lures. For the most part everything saw action but the kokanee preferred two different setups. One was a 50/50 hammered ArrowFlash dodger followed by an Elgin 50/50 God’s Tooth spoon rigged for kokanee fishing. The other rig was a silver plated/moon jelly ArrowFlash dodger and a Brad’s Baboon Kokanee Cut Plug. The God’s Tooth spoon was rigged with double hooks on 18” of 12# Seaguar fluorocarbon and the Cut Plug on 22” of 15# fluorocarbon. Although we chased meter marks the most productive depth was between 26 and 26’. Our trolling speed floated between 1.2 and 2.1 mph and our setback was 60’. For the lead line we ran 2-3 colors with a 60’ fluorocarbon top shot.

In the end we weeded through numerous drive-bys and long releases while catching numerous 12-17” kokanee, 8-14” rainbows, either coho or chum smolts, fat 10-18” cutthroat and 2 brown trout. The day was one for the record books. Incredible fishing, great fellowship and I made it home in time to head for the Blue Fox Drive-in in Oak Harbor!

rseas

6/26/2018 5:10:21 AM

Whoops...

"Between 25 and 36'"

JoshH

6/26/2018 11:04:43 AM

If this is where I think it is, browns?

rseas

6/26/2018 11:37:26 AM

Definitely browns, we were surprised too. Putting 2 and 2 together it makes sense. Fishing this lake in the late fall we have hooked a couple huge fish on Kokanee gear. Never saw them but I always thought they were a huge cutthroat, chinook or maybe even chums. If there are smaller browns in the lake it would make sense that our fall fish we're big browns staging to spawn. Maybe in September or October this year we'll head that direction and target browns.

JoshH

6/26/2018 1:08:18 PM

Ive heard of the occasional eastern brook there, but first ive heard of browns. Wow, very interesting!

ElginFishing

6/26/2018 8:56:22 PM

Thanks for giving the God's tooth some work! Glad to read of your success and thank you for sharing your experience with us :)

downriggeral

6/26/2018 10:18:49 PM

Sounds like fun and close to my Sons to boot. Need to get over and give it a go.
Tight lines Alan

Toni

7/1/2018 7:33:10 PM

Thanks Randy. Do you use your camera?

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