Day two of my fishing adventure with Dad. Got on the water smoothly today and started fishing at about 6:15 and off the water at noon. Started off Rocky Point. At about 6:50 my rod got absolutely crushed. I wish I would of seen the fish hit but I was messing with the other down rigger when my Dad says there's a fish on. I look over to see the rod just pegged to the side of the boat. Grab the rod and the fish takes me for a joy ride. Sad story so I'm not going to build it up too much, I lost it.

It was maxing out my light gear and my reel's brake/drag were all jacked up. The fish should of been able to take more drag with the amount of pressure that was there but it just wasn't able to... and I wasn't making much progress reeling it in either. Might of tried to pull it up from the depths too soon. When it popped out I thought for sure line/leader/hook break, but everything was perfect so it just ripped out of the fish (kokanee?). So, the fish hit aggresively, fought pretty hard (rainbow), stayed deep (Chinook?), was pretty darn big (laker?), and crushed a small hoochie at 40'. Any speculations? I'm thinking it probably had to be a laker, Chinook, or rainbow... if it was a kokanee it would have been a world record! I'm telling myself it was just a laker or rainbow to feel better... but just out of curiosity, has anybody caught Chinook in on the river end of the southern basin?

After screwing that up I felt like quitting for the day, but persisted. We trolled around Rocky Point/Mill bay until about 8:30 with nothing to show, so I decided to run to the blue roofed condos since Minneapolis didn't produce for me the day before. Started deeper and moved up towards the shallows. In 80-100' of water was marking lots of fish cruising around 20' and tons of plankton and/or bait fish... figured something had to give. as we reached a transition between shallow/deep At about 8:50 Dad spotted another fish on for me, I am training him well! It was a fiesty little koke that started doing some jumping and had me worried, but got it cranked in. Felt good to get one in the boat after losing whatever that monster was. Koke was 14" and came at 50' over 120' of water.

Made one more pass over that transition for nothing. I kind of decided at this point the kokanee are just holding randomly around the southern basin going where forage may be or the currents/water temps take them. Didn't see any real good schools so decided to troll up the south shore and pick up the random fish. Had two bites at various points. The one I saw tapped about three times and was gone and my pops saw one that did something similar but was gone when he popped it from the clip.

At 10:30 about mid way between the blue roofed condos and Minneapolis in a gradual shallow sort of area my dad spots yet another fish tapping at a rod before me. I have him grab it and slowly reel in the fish as it then proceeds to swim towards the boat and jump (some teacher I am). Tell him to speed it up the retrieve a bit and as I'm about to crank up the down rigger on his side, the other side goes off. My first official kokanee double! Pops didn't quite know what to do so I tell him hes going to have to net his fish then mine. He gets his in and the hook catches in the net (really need to invest in a rubber/coated net sans duct taped handle). My koke is peeling drag trying to swim for the Columbia! Finally he gets the net freed, but the sun is in his eyes and he misses my fish. I grab the net and get the job done, sorry pops! One fish went 17" one went 17 and 1/2", a dandy first double! Fish were caught at 50' and 80' over 140' of water. Marked a school of some definite fish right on the bottom in that area twice, not sure if they were kokanee. Would seem odd for them to be directly off the bottom like that.

Trolled up through Minneapolis Beach area just in case, but no more action. Cut over to the launch and called it a day, wind was starting to pick up a bit. Fish were all caught on hoochie/spinner creations of my own, all similar to cha cha squidders, at speeds of 0.9-1.4 mph from 40-80'. Looks like its going to be another good year on Chelan, if not quantity then at least there should be some real quality. Looking forward to my next trip and the bite to get hot, tight lines all!

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