The trend is improving, 3 times in a week! I got up this morning and the wind was not blowing so I figured that I was going fishing. After a quick stop at Holiday for ice and coffee, I was floating on Lake Samish by 7:00. The air was still and the lake was like a mirror. Samish is kind of my home lake and glassy conditions can be troubling, the catalyst for a finicky bite.

Gear down, one lead line rig and one off a downrigger. The lead line rig usually goes in first and today started off with a bang. The lead line rod goes off as I was setting the downrigger line in in the clip. While fighting the boat’s first Samish kokanee of the year the downrigger line pops out of the clip that is still running on the surface. Cool, a double right off the bat! The net was still stowed so I bounce the fish and a short while later it is on ice. I decided to get the net out before dealing with the second fish. A bad decision, as I lift the rod from the rod holder the fish jumps to wave goodbye and pops off. No worries, I had marked the spot and figured that I would circle around have my way with some willing biters.

For about the next ½ hour the plan was a solid one. I had numerous drive-bys, released 4 or 5 fish and lost a few. Then as hot as it started, the sun crested the hill and the bite completely shut down. Now I would have to put my kokanee kap on and get in serious hunt mode.

Today I ran a variety of Poulsen Cascade Arrow Flash dodgers but the hot ticket was the hammered 50/50 dodger. Consistent with early season Lake Samish Kokanee fishing, small minimalistic spinner rigs were my go to lures. Although my 45 minute kokanee Konga party was probably not a good measure; silver/green and silver/pink spinners were on fire. After the sun came up I couldn’t buy a bite. I ran many different lures, or flies in a variety of colors with no more kokanee love.

My kicker setup has finally settled in. Running an 11 ¾ x5 ¾ prop, my Yammy 9.9’s minimum trolling speed floats around 1.0 mph. That said I was trolling at .9-1.1 mph today. All my fish this morning were hooked while running either ½ color of lead line and a 60’ top shot, or the downrigger at 16’ with a 60’ setback. I tipped the pointy end of things with tuna corn but think that a small piece of worm or nightcrawler would have been more effective.

It was kind of an interesting day. I saw very few kokanee jumping, just a handful on the meter and did not see a single school of fish. Another odd thing, I did not hook a single cutthroat. In the spring we usually catch quite a few quality cutts. The good news, I metered numerous large schools of perch! Overall a slow morning but it was an absolutely beautiful day to be on Lake Samish.

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