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My wife and I fished lake Chelan Sunday and Monday for kokanee. As I’m sure many have heard, the kokanee fishing has started early and the fish are big again, as they were last year. So with hopes set on “high”, but tempered by recent not so great reports we left rainy Redmond and arrived Saturday evening in Chelan. Sun! (and some rain, and wind…) . Let the adventure begin!

Sunday morning. I awaken to steady rain and slip on my multiple layers in anticipation of a wet day of trolling. Thank goodness for long underwear. We drive over to the PUD launch and motor up lake to an area guys are fishing off the Rocky Point. It’s pretty obvious as there are already a couple dozen boats trolling when we get there. We’ll be running four rods off two downriggers. Bonus for this year is I now have two electric Scotty’s. What a difference that makes! Although the word I heard was bigger dodgers and longer leaders, I decided to fish Chelan the way I fished kokanee on the Wet Side last year. So our gear was all small dodgers or sling blades, and my home-made wedding rings and hoochie rigs, tied with 8-12” leaders. For bait we used of course shoe peg corn, and also shrimp or mealworms.

Lines in the water at 7:40 and our first double at 7:47, now that’s a nice start! Two fish in the boat and we are just starting. We are away from the crowd, working in 170ft of water. Our rigs are set from 55 to 85ft deep. I’ll summarize the exact gear, rigs, depth, etc at the end of this report.

The fish keep coming. 8:05, 8:15, then quiet for a bit and at 8:55 – our first TRIPLE! I’ll tell you what, it is pretty challenging for two people to catch and net three fish. We lost two of the three as JoAnn and I started the process of figuring out a system for dealing with three bouncing rods. 9:15 – another TRIPLE! This time we get two out of three of the fish in. Things slow down until we hit a double at 10:45, and get them both in. In between we had a few bites and a couple lost fish, but morning ended with 10 fish. As the winds started coming up we headed back in and took an afternoon siesta.

Refreshed and with more fish allowed (10 per angler per day for the kokanee on Chelan) we went out in the evening. Started fishing at 5:40pm and immediately caught a fish. And more fish – 6:10, 6:14, and finally 6:40, at which point the winds once again came up and blew us off the water.

Day One we ended up catching 14 fish. The sizes of these fish are truly impressive. Our smallest was 14” and the biggest was 18”. Most of our fish ran 16-17”! Sunday was pretty tough from a comfort standpoint – the morning was rainy and my gear did not stand up to the steady rains. So I was wet and cold in-between working the gear, which did keep me warm. But I had a smile on my face. JoAnn had the luxury of staying under cover except to come out and play or net a fish, so she was fine.

The weather forecast for Monday was sunny and light winds, and the weather man was “pretty” close. It was partly sunny, which I gladly took, and light breeze, for which I was very thankful. This time I got us out and on the water by 6:30am. I was curious to see if the weather change would dampen the bite. It didn’t.
We once again started out at Rocky Point, and amazingly this time there was just one other boat out there. I love fishing weekdays! Our first fish was two, a double at 6:45. Then, 7:10 – another double! And 7:24, another fish, on a Wannafish Bloody Mary (love that lure Toni!).

Now the action stopped. I wondered “is this it?” was that the bite and we were down for the day? JoAnn reminded me that Sunday this was when we started fishing, and now we already had five in the boat. So I took advantage of the lull in the action and ate breakfast. It would be the last bit of quiet I’d have for several hours…
8:35 - 8:45 - 8:50 - 9:00 – 9:15 – Double! - 9:25 - 9:40 - 9:45 – WOW! What an amazing morning bite. All this action came off Rocky Point and trolling up lake. Things slowed up a bit, and then we hit a fish at 10:40, and ended the day at 10:50 with a double, but lost one of them. After that the wind really started coming up. We decided it was just getting too uncomfortable and at 11:45 called it a day, with another 16 in the boat.
Two days of fishing, three trips, 30 kokanee. Smallest fish was 13” (how did he get in there?) and the biggest was 18” (amazing fish!). I could not believe our level of success. JoAnn just looked at me on the drive home and said “I bet you’re happy”. :-)

Yes, that’s an understatement. It was really gratifying to see that the techniques I learned and developed last year translated to such phenomenal success on this trip. It sure makes it look easy when the fishing is this good. I hope you’ll have a chance to fish Chelan this spring for some of these amazing koks!

Here’s the catching breakdown. Listed will be time, depth, lure, bait and size. BTW, trolling speed averaged 0.9-1.5mph on GPS. I tried to keep it at 1.2 as much as possible.

SUNDAY AM

7:47 - 50 ft, rose Wedding Ring (WR), mealworm (MW), 17”, 70 ft, pink hoochie , shrimp (Sh), 14.5”
8:05 - 70 ft, Bloody Mary WR, Sh, 16”
8:15 – 55 ft, rose WR, MW, 14”
8:55 – 50 ft rose WR, MW, 16”, 55 ft gold WR, MW, 14”, 75 ft pink hoochie, Sh, Lost.
9:15 – 70 WR, Sh, 16”, 80 ft WR, Sh, 14”, 80 ft lavender hoochie, Sh, Lost.

SUNDAY PM

5:40 – 70 ft, rose WR, Sh, 17”
6:10 – 70 ft, bubble gum hoochie, Sh, 17”
6:14 – 70 ft, gold WR, MW, 15.5”
6:40 – 70 ft, bubble gum hoochie, Sh, 15”

MONDAY

6:45 – 65 ft, lavender hoochie, Sh, 17.5”, 80 ft, rose WR, Sh, 13”
7:10 – 70 ft, lavender hoochie, Sh, 16”, 85 ft, Bloody Mary WR, Sh, 16”
7:24 – 85 ft, Bloody Mary WR, Sh, 16”
8:35 – 55 ft, glow black/green hoochie, Sh, 15.5”
8:50 – 55 ft, glow black/green hoochie, Sh, 16”
9:00 – 70 ft, lavender hoochie, Sh, 16.5”, 55 ft, glow green/black hoochie, Sh, 13”
9:15 – 55 ft, glow green/black hoochie, Sh, 14.5”, 65 ft, pink hoochie, Sh, 15.5”
9:25 – 70 ft, pink hoochie, Sh, 17.5”
9:40 – 65 ft, pink hoochie, Sh, 16.5”
9:45 – 70 ft, lavender hoochie, Sh, 15”
10:40 – 70 ft, lavender hoochie, Sh, 16.5”
10:50 – 75 ft, rose WR, Sh, Lost, 60 ft, pink hoochie, Sh, 16”

fishslayer60

4/8/2013 9:42:00 PM

Man that sounds like fun! Thank you for the detailed report Mike. I havnt fished chelan in years but am planning a trip to roosevelt this summer and will try and get at least a day on chelan. Again nice report, tight lines!

Nitrosteve

4/8/2013 9:53:00 PM

Nice job Mike and some amazing fish! Thanks for sharing your success and info. I think I am going to have to head up there soon!

Aaron

4/8/2013 10:14:00 PM

And I passed this up... for what... a single 2lb fish at Deer Lake. :(

Idstud

4/8/2013 10:22:00 PM

Wow what a fun trip. I have been dreaming of heading over there to get some gear wet. Where did you stay while over there. Those are some really nice sized fish you got there I sure would be happy as well. Thanks for the report.

Racer

4/8/2013 11:25:00 PM

That's some darn nice fish Mike. I've been thinking about a trip over there. Now I need to think alittle harder about making it happen.

rseas

4/9/2013 6:39:00 AM

Good job Mike and thanks for the informative report. Stud; they stayed at Lakeshore RV Park in Chelan. They are very professional and are run by the city of Chelan. There are a number of ramps close by but currently only two are usable due to seasonal lake levels.

Augwen

4/9/2013 7:21:00 AM

The picture of you sitting in the grass...what a great CATCHIN' smile!!!

afk

4/9/2013 7:32:00 AM

Mike, I'm glad to see Lake Chelan was good to you. It must be your fishin' partners attitude! Thanks for the report.

Mike Carey

4/9/2013 8:04:00 AM

Thanks everyone. After a winter steelhead season of oh-for-everything it was nice to get out and have an Epic day on the water. They don't come often so when they do it's a real blessing! Also, the new white Lamiglas kokanee rods performed excellent, JoAnn really liked them.

gfakkema

4/9/2013 10:36:00 AM

Nice work Mike! I've been trying to get a trip planned to get over to chelan and get in on some of that koke action. Can't wait! Glad to hear that you like the Lami white koke rod. I've been looking into getting one of these for a while now and glad to hear that you like them. What reel did you pair it up with?

kenbarb

4/9/2013 10:56:00 AM

Outstanding! Trip of a lifetime, thanks for sharing. Ken

Rippasher06

4/9/2013 11:10:00 AM

Fat daddy fish nice. I thought you had to fish the lakes in Cali. to catch Koks' like those.

jd39

4/9/2013 12:04:00 PM

Nice work Mike! Those are awesome kokanee!

cobrar543

4/9/2013 12:21:00 PM

Plan on a charter there this spring. Cant wait!

eenakok

4/9/2013 1:01:00 PM

Amazing report and pics! Thank you for the detail. I will be making a trip soon hopefully!

Steelheadin360

4/9/2013 2:30:00 PM

Nice report mike! Did you happen to leave any fish if some of us wish to venture over there?

scudman

4/9/2013 4:04:00 PM

Thanks for the heads up. I am planning to fish Chelan in June for kokanee for the first time. Could you tell me where Rocky Point is? Can't find it on a map.

Toni

4/9/2013 4:32:00 PM

That report had me smiling! Bet you are happy!!!
Is there going to be a video?

Mike Carey

4/9/2013 4:36:00 PM

I use Bass Pro Shop Pro Qualifier reels. They are the old round kind, pflueger makes them. You can only get them on E-Bay now. I like them because they are smaller and match up well with the rod.
Rocky Point is on the north shore, down lake from the Mill Bay launch about a mile. I marked the Hot Spot on my report. You'll see the fleet on the weekends... also, the picture of the handheld GPS shows the Lat/Long (along with the other Hot Spots).
Video - I'm working on it now. It's a fun one!

Mike@Bills

4/9/2013 7:43:00 PM

Good lookin fish!

blufin loui

4/9/2013 7:55:00 PM

Totally Awesome report Mike. you and your wife make a pretty fearsome (to fish anyway) team. Sounded like it worked out great for a nice mess of Kokanee even if the weather was a chalenge.. Hope the wet windy time on the water wasn't too discouraging for the missus. Wish we knew you were in town and cindy and I would have met up with you and had dinner and stories. Thanks for such a detailed report and hope to see more great reports of your adventures in the future.

Mike Carey

4/9/2013 8:39:00 PM

Sorry we must have just missed each other on the water, too. We'll be back in a month. Maybe we should try to do a WL.com Kokanee Get Together. Hmmm...

gfakkema

4/9/2013 10:26:00 PM

Hey Mike, I see that you used the public/county launch. I've noticed that a lot of people launch from mill bay. How long did it take you to motor to the grounds? Did you go all the way to mill or did you mainly hang around at rocky? Trying to plan a trip and was wondering if it were better to endure that endless no-wake zone and long motor or just trailer to mill. Thanks.

Mike Carey

4/10/2013 9:04:00 PM

Wasn't long at all. I wouldn't use the PUD launch on a busy weekend though. We fished Rocky Point area and trolled north, center of the lake.

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