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Baker Lake? Where’s that? So my trip on Saturday was interesting, I went 10 or 12 for 3, and some have an interesting story attached but first…

My main focus was the area between Noisy Creek to Silver Creek. I did fish the other side of the lake for a bit but it was a dolly-fest again so I moved on. All the early fish were very shallow, 12’-21’ including one fish that hit before I got the clip set. All of the Saturday fish were caught on a 50/50 “0” dodger, followed by my new sockeye flies tipped with cured shrimp”. Again the trolling speed of choice was 1.2 mph. I was fishing 9” leaders but if you cannot run at 1.0 mph, 1.2 mph or whatever speed, adjust your leaders accordingly. If your boats trolling speed is a little faster, increase your leader length so that your hooks are doing the hurkie-jerky thing. One of the things I like about fishing solo is that I feel free to experiment, trying new locations and gear.

Yesterday I went looking for late morning fish. Knowing that as the sun hits the water the fish, meter marks and bite seem to go elsewhere so I went looking for them. I found three locations where there were concentrations of meter marks. Two were in deepwater bays and the other a shallower open water area. When I deployed my conventional sockeye gear, chasing meter marks I came up empty. The whole thing got me to thinking and I decided to change tactics. I tied on a wee sized pink and gold salmon/steelhead plug, goobered it up with krill/shrimp gel and ran it 100’ behind the clip. This rig took my final fish of the day. I am not sure if it was a case of right place, right time or possibly a technique for encouraging the lock-jawed daytime fish to bite. Did I earlier say interesting story?

As noted earlier I was fishing solo today. I started the day with a double so I did the catch and release thing for a few hours and then when I decided to keep #3 the struggles began. I found a crap load of new ways to loose fish. I had one jump over a log not once but twice effectively lassoing the log and breaking the leader. The next fish was the victim of someone’s trolling motor. He didn’t notice me fighting the fish when my fish jumped on the other side of his boat and ultimately ended up in his motor. I lost a fish when a hook snagged in my net just as I was netting the fish. The fish wasn’t quite in the net yet and the hook just popped out of the fish. An eagle hauled off a fish but I am pretty sure that it was a dolly. The last unintentional release was weird. I figure the fish hit while swimming the same direction I was trolling, swam forward of the boat and then back down the other side of the boat ultimately tangling in the opposite down rigger ball and release. By the time I figured out what was going on the fish jumped once right at the boat and was gone, I guess that it didn’t want to wait for me to untangle things… I had a whole year of “oh-mans” in one day. Not complaining, the happenings made for a memorable day. It was a great day on the water, actually a great evening and day on the water. I did the overnight thing Friday night. Speaking of, I brought a couple crawdad traps and ended up with a bunch of nice sized mudbugs to go with the day’s catch of sockeye.

I saw John, a regular to WashingtonLakes, his father and brother both from Idaho out on the lake and congratulate them on their first Baker Lake sockeye. In closing, a quick note of caution; even though for the most part the log and debris mine field has broke up be very cautions out there. For some reason many of the larger hunks of wood are floating just under the surface and with any wind chop at all they are impossible to see.

andywhe

7/15/2012 8:52:00 AM

Thanks Rseas, nice report as usual. I always read your reports no matter where you fish because they are so informative. Guess I'm going to have to drag my lazy butt out of bed and try Baker!

MotoBoat

7/15/2012 9:12:00 AM

What I like is when you get to "thinking' and go with unconventional gear! I was considering putting together a colored bead assortment for Kokanee and such. Is there a bead size you would reccomend? Do you find it necessary to stack beads of different sizes when building a spinner from scratch? Along with beads, what about spinner blades or smile's in color and size options?

As always, nice report.

MotoBoat

7/15/2012 9:13:00 AM

Reccomend

MotoBoat

7/15/2012 9:16:00 AM

Was playing with spell checker and hit submit, my bad! Yes "reccomend": is incorrectly spelled, twice.

rseas

7/15/2012 12:09:00 PM

MotoBoat, no worries. I wasn't at school the day they taught speeling, I was fishing! Regarding the kokanee spinners, typically I think that most of mine are 5 or 6 mm beads. As far as using different size beads, my rigs vary quite a bit. I make many spinners with all the beads the same sides but I also make what I think of as bug or nymph spinners where the bead size tapers from top to bottom. When I make wedding band type of spinners my two center beads are matched to the band size then they taper from there. "considering putting together a colored bead assortment for Kokanee and such" Go to Shipwreck Beads in Lacey. They are located in the same general area as Cabela's, just go the other direction at the big round-a-bout. As far as bead stores go the place is huge, it would take hours to look at everything. They have a large collection of wedding ring colors and sizes and more beads than you would ever imagine ever existed.

Toni

7/15/2012 1:07:00 PM

Very nice. What a day you had.. A Plane?

rseas

7/15/2012 1:20:00 PM

Not sure what the deal was with the plane. Shortly after it landed the sheriff boat met it and then the plane took off again. I was thinking there was a medical emergency or something.

Toni

7/15/2012 2:06:00 PM

I thought about those logs, when I saw it.

Bryce

7/15/2012 2:09:00 PM

Thanks so much for the report! I'm heading up there next weekend and I am super excited about it. How did you catch the crawdads? Like what kind of bait and how deep did you drop your trap?

Idstud

7/15/2012 3:02:00 PM

It was great to see you and nice to see you get some mudbugs. I tryed the first year out of the mouth of noisy creek and got nothing. I think next time. My fam had a great time and thought it was neat I knew someone on the water. Next time I will have to remember bait though. Thanks for the great report. I was for sure that seaplane was going to hit one of those floating trees. I watched an Eagel take a kink salmon bigger then him in Alaska what a great photo and sight to see.

rseas

7/15/2012 3:24:00 PM

A lucky shot and lucky that I thought to grab the camera.

Kingchinook

7/15/2012 3:35:00 PM

Beautiful chrome rockets and looks to be one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen to troll around while catching big sockeye can't wait for my turn on baker anyone know about how long this fishery usually lasts

rseas

7/15/2012 5:43:00 PM

Per the WDFW Sport Fishing Rules pamphlet the fishery is scheduled to remain open through September 4th.

Mike Carey

7/16/2012 10:28:00 PM

Great! Baker lake here I come. Love the photo of Mt Baker BTW.

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