Lake Chelan Fishing Report For 2/11/2017 From Anton Jones
LAKE CHELAN AREA FISHING REPORT FOR 2/11/17
And the beat goes on… Lake Chelan continued hot, trolling for Mackinaw in the Trench and Kokanee on Colyar Ledge.
Trolling for suspended Kokanee continues terrific. Pull Mack’s Lure’s Mini Cha Cha Squidders in Orange on a short leader behind their Double D Dodgers in the 7.6 size. Bait the Mini Cha Cha’s Corn soaked in Pro Cure’s Bloody Tuna scent. We have caught these landlocked sockeye anywhere from 45 to 200 feet deep.
Laker fishing has been terrific in the Trench. Fish within 3 to 5 feet of the bottom and keep your speed around .8 to .9 mph. Jeff Drift rigs in glow colors fronted with a Mack’s Smile Blade and baited with a piece of Northern Pikeminnow has been our best pattern.
Your fishing tips of the week is to keep track of small details when fishing kokanee. The most important of these is depth. You see the fish on your sonar at 115’. How do you know your gear is there? If you don’t have your downrigger ball showing on the screen it might be a challenge to know. Sometimes the balls being in the sonar cone can be too much and obliterate fish signals. So you adjust your transducer to eliminate the downrigger balls you better “zero” your downriggers. Maybe touch the balls on the bottom at a known similar depth and change your counter to match your depth. Then you only have “Kentucky Windage” to adjust for as you increase depth or speed… To be precise can be difficult. More importantly, keep your mind open to the “less is more” doctrine. If you are trolling through an area that holds a large number of fish for an extended distance, fishing the maximum number of rods makes sense. If you are trying to hit a small area very precisely, minimizing the number of rods could actually improve your catch. Where we know certain small spots hold concentrations of fish, we will troll through working one rod precisely, and another rigged and ready to go. Hook a fish on the one rod, make your turn and drop ready rod down. Net the hooked fish, hook another fish, re-rig that one, etc. Sometimes less rods can allow you to fish more precisely and effectively.
The kid’s tip of the week is to use the open discussion time that fishing affords to help them explore their problem solving skills. Doing it with open ended questions also develops critical thinking skills. These are both things that modern life rarely affords us the time to develop appropriately. For example asking the 8 year old how we should steer around that log up ahead. Then asking follow ups like,” What do we do if the wind changes, or what about that outside fishing line?” “ Would it catch the log doing that? “ The simplest of life’s situations can be very teachable moments.
The safety tip of the week is to remember to unplug those electric downriggers before working on the cable. The cable moving unexpectedly while your hands are on it can be a very unwelcome surprise.
2/8/17 - Sonny & Pat Clemmer of Springdale, WA with their friends Caroline & Don Renz of Loon Lake and their epic catch of Lake Chelan Mackinaw.
2/6/17 - The venerable Pepe' out with the intrepid Jeff to get their Kokanee fix.
DARRELL & DAD’S FAMILY GUIDE SERVICE
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