I had planned to fish Lake Samish at the crack of dawn this morning but when the alarm went off I didn’t quite get out of bed. An hour later I was up, had the coffee made and the boat ready to go. Arriving at the lake I found it windy and there were very few boats on the lake. From the launch I ran to the other side of the lake and got to work. I was fishing solo so I only had to deal with 2 rods. A good thing because through out the course of the morning I changed gear numerous times before I had it dialed in.

I would be typing all night so won’t go through the list of what didn’t work. What worked was a Wonder Bread Skagit Tackle dodger and a similar size dodger in silver prism/purple. I ran a green mini squid 8” behind one of the dodgers and a custom tied silver/purples spinner 14” behind the other dodger. I tipped the pointy end of things with corn and maggots. I was running the gear at 38’-58’ chasing meter marks. With the wind my trolling speed varied constantly but I was shooting for 1.6 mph. Once I had it dialed in the fishing was lights out and I even finished with a double. The fish were 14” to 17” with the biggest tipping the scale right at 2 pounds. It was chilly and wet, but a fun morning. One that as it turned out wasn’t over.

After the last fish was in the box and I had the boat cleaned up and reorganized I decided to head for the park to use the sand box. On arrival I find a ton of boats tied off at the dock and as it turned out Yeager’s Sporting Goods was hosting a Kokanee University. As luck may have it some of the sponsors knew me so I was absorbed into the festivities. The shindig even included a hotdog lunch and swag-bag. As the classroom portion of the university concluded they transitioned to the on-the–water portion of the university. It turned out that they had more students than boat seats so they asked if I would be willing to share some of my expertise and take someone out. It turned out that my student is a WashingtonLaker and excited for the opportunity to fish with me. I was not able to fish until 4:00 the official end of the university session but my student was OK with my schedule limitations so we cast off and head back to the big lake.

The wind had picked up and there was the occasional white cap rolling by but we made the best of it and set the gear out. The conversation was enjoyable and a great way to pass the time as we fought the wind in search of an afternoon kokanee. We had a couple drive-bys but no hooked fish. Then as we were coming up to the end of my schedule window one of the clips releases and it was fish on. A short while later very feisty 13”-14” kokanee makes its way into the net. I was out of time so it was back to the docks to drop off my student and head for the barn. The day was a blast and I was fortunate in getting to meet many exceptional people.

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