Fished Lake Samish for the very first time. Was going to be meeting up with a fellow Hobie fisherman, but he had to cancel last minute. Since I had taken the AIS online certification, decided to still make use of it. Very surprised to find that because of the certificate, I did not have to pay for my 2018 sticker. It would have been $10 for 2018. Motorized boat though it is a bit steep at $40, but hey, look how much Kokanee fisherman spend on gear alone!

I started fishing about 6:30ish. The wind was nuts, I was getting blown all over the place. Another 5mph, and I would have had to pack it in as steering was extremely difficult. Soon and the wind died down a bit, here came the rain. Great! Went out in front of the launch, trolled a little north, and a little south, mainly staying on the east side. I did venture over to the west side once, but didn't mark as many fish. I kept seeing tiny little lite bites on my line. I would bring the line in only to find 6 inch Kokanee on my line. Luckily, all hopped off before I could grab the net. (I really didn't want to keep 6 inch fish) I marked just a ton of fish in that area between 20-30 feet, but every singly one I believe was next years keepers. I decided to move a bit north, still staying on the east side, and pretty quickly got into what I was looking for.

Fish were stacked between 30-50 feet. I got my 5 at either 30, or 43 feet. I used a prototype Elgin Fishing Dodger, 12 inches of leader to a pink Elgin Fishing God's Tooth Spoon, rigged for Kokanee by Reli Lures. I went through a couple of patterns before settling on pink. The other line I ran a Mack's Double D Dodger, 12 inches of leader to an 50/50 Elgin Fishing God's Tooth Spoon. Corn was Fire corn dyed orange that's been in my bait fridge for over a month soaking in Pro Cure Garlic Bloody Tuna. Speed to get bites was between 1 - 1.2 mph. Fun fishing, and I will definitely be back more often now that I understand I get a free pass on the AIS :)


Video shows the fish I landed today. A first finally happened for me, a fish got wrapped around my downrigger line, and I had to do a little dance to get it netted!

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