Wow, what a great day on the water today!

My wife JoAnn and I got up at 3:30 and drove to lake Samish in search of kokanee. We arrived and had the boat in the water at 6:15. The parking lot was already almost full. Even so, it was easy trolling with plenty of room for everyone. We started off at rseas’s last report Hotspot, and it proved to be immediately successful as we began catching and losing fish for the next 2 ½ hours. We ran four rods off two downriggers, line spacing every ten feet, 55, 45, 35, 25. We used a variety of colors on both the attractors and the sharp end of things, and added a couple of pieces of scented shoe corn to boot. Trolling speed was around 1.2-1.6mph. In those first two hours we caught three ranging from 14-16 inches, lost three and had multiple swipes and misses by the fish. One double culminated the morning’s action at 8:30am. The best color for me today was a bubblegum crappie tube.

After our busy 2 hours things turned off. We saw a few caught here and there, but not much. Our morning was pleasantly surprised by rseas and his wife joining us on the water. Is it legal to text, run four rods, and drive a boat? It certainly is challenging at times! During our dry spell we explored the little lake at the far end of the lake. There were plenty of fish being marked, but like the ones in the bigger lake they were not interested in our offerings.

We came back to the main lake and while trolling along with rseas boat next to us, at 2pm we got one last rod bouncing and fish on. Up came another beautiful silver bullet. We called the day not long after that. Four fish – considering how the day started I was expecting more, but I’m still very pleased. The fish are cleaned and awaiting tomorrow’s trip to the smoker. I’m learning that with kokanee fishing it certainly helps to start early – the best bite seems to be the first two hours of the day, at least in my experience.

Weather was perfect – mid sixties light to no breeze, partly sunny. A perfect day to be on the water!

*Note - cooler picture minus fish number four.

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