Took the family and the boat to Lake Chelan for some fun and sun at Wapato Point. Along with the pool play and tubing, I managed to get some fishing time in.

On the 24th, I tried unsuccessfully for macks and kings in the early morning near the State Park. At around noon, my oldest daughter Michelle and I went out for some kokanee.
We caught three in the 11-12 inch range dodging the skiers out in the middle south of the point. We were picking them up
at 70 to 75 feet on the riggers with my dodger and wedding ring combo.

On the 25th I took 7 year old Megan out for kokanee, and we caught her first fish ever, a 12 inch koke. We caught four in about two hours and went back in to play in the pool. I was catching the
kokes from 50 to 60 feet down, as it was pretty sunny out, even right after breakfast when we started.

One of the other guys from my group at work was also at Wapato the same time, so on the 26th I took Gary Crowder and his son Kevin out for some kokanee. We fished three poles for a while and it's a bit of a chore to stack on a rigger with ultralight trout poles and the string of spinner blades that I attach to the cable. After a tangle of two trying to get fish in, I put the third pole away. We caught Kevin a limit of 5 kokanee in about 2 hours, and caught two more as I was cleaning the fish while we trolled back to Wapato (no sense wasting water time without lines in the water).
Gary told me later that Kevin was pretty proud of his fish, and he did a great job fighting them. He even netted the last two
for his dad!

On the 27th, our last morning, I went out by myself for big fish. I had bought Rick Graybill's book last year, and had a pole rigged with Proline and Berkley Vanish. I had a couple of plugs and some
Smelly Jelly. I was ready! I fished from Wapato Point to the Mill Park, where the book has tons of "L"s on the map. There were four or five boats there with me. Most were trolling flatfish and picking
up some macks. I had some problems with my gear. At one point I think I hung a plug on the bottom and snapped the Berkley vanish (12#) without even noticing it. It snapped about 5 feet into
the Vanish. Go figure. With time running out before I had to leave, I pulled out my regular salmon pole and put my last plug on it, a 4 inch green splatter Silver Horde. Sent it down to 130 and ran the pattern a couple of times. My depth sounder has a 4X zoom on it, which was really helpful in seeing the fish right on the bottom. At regular, it looked like a smooth bottom. On 4x, I could see pockets and lots of fish arches down there as well. I had one hit that did not hook up. The pole bounced pretty good, but no fish or release. Two passes later, I got a good hit. I grabbed the pole, reeled up the slack and set the hook three times. The fish felt pretty big, but didn't take off like a salmon in saltwater. I could feel the weight and some jerks on the rod, but it was like fighting a halibut or a doggie. When the fish was about 50 feet under the boat, I could finally see it. It looked like a big lake trout. I got it to the surface and was able to net it myself on the first try. It went 14 pounds, 11 ounces on my scale. When I cleaned it, it had a layer of fat inside the body cavity that
was about 1/2 inch thick! I think that since these fish gulp down shrimp off the bottom, they don't have to expend much energy getting food, and grow fast, big and fat. Themeat was orange and
tasted great. A great fish and a good way to wrap up a great trip!

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