Well, we survived the third annual Baker Lake camping/fishing trip, although this year it was just my 6-year-old son and me along with my friend and his 3-year-old son. We camped three nights and fished the mornings of July 31-Aug 1.

The fishing was slow overall. It seemed like boats were averaging one or two fish per day, and we caught fish two of the three days. On Monday, we got skunked, although I did get one drive by that disappeared by the time I got my rod out of the holder. On Tuesday we missed another drive by, released a dolly varden (about 3 lbs), and landed one sockeye. We were in the middle of a bunch of boats, so I reeled and netted the fish while my son kept us from running into anyone. On Wednesday we landed one sockeye (my son did most of the reeling and I netted it), another sockeye broke us off, and we missed another drive by bite (maybe my hooks weren't sharp enough?). I was really surprised that the sockeye snapped the leader, since it was either 20lb or 30lb test, but it had gotten wrapped up with the dodger earlier and it must have gotten a nick or something.

The winning combo (responsible for both fish we took home) was a silver Mack's Double D dodger and homemade shaker wing lure tied with crystal flash and a few rubber hoochie tentacles, either with commercial brined coon shrimp or home cured grocery store shrimp with garlic bloody tuna scent. The dolly and the salmon we broke off came on a different setup, though.

All in all, it was a great trip, although the fishing wasn't red hot or anything.

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