I fished kokanee in Lake Samish for a few hours this morning. I think that I was the one and only boat fishing kokanee. There was some sort of Bass tournament going on and as I was heading out on the lake a string of Bass boats were lining up to launch. I ran to the bottle neck area and dropped the usual kokanee gear. The downrigger rod running at 20-38’ was set up with one of my custom wedding band spinners and I experimented with the lead line rig running at 1-2 colors. The action was immediate and consistent until 8:30 when somebody closed the door to the schoolhouse. A majority of the fish were caught on my custom wedding band spinners. A purple spin-n-glow rig and a purple mini squid were also effective. I ran at 0.8-1.6 mph and the water temp varied around 68.5 degrees. I fished both the bay at the bottleneck and the smaller north lake. The center of the thermocline was at about 25’ and a majority of the fish were concentrated at 25-30’.The fish are starting to school up for their fall rituals. Final count, about 25 kokanee to around 16”, all released alive and well.

---