One of the great things about fishing is that it brings friends and family together year after year in traditions that start and continue on. For my wife JoAnn and I, Baker lake has been a destination that we have enjoyed now for several years. This year looked to be the first time we would miss it, due to the poor early returns. As our fishing date approached and I saw the dismal number of 386 fish transported to Baker, I broke the news to JoAnn – we’d be going somewhere else. That is, until I spoke with rseas, who assured me that even with such small numbers our chances were still good at catching some of these delicious salmon. Convinced to give it a try, we drove out Saturday afternoon, had our traditional dinner at Cascade Burger, and then headed up to Baker. The weather was beyond nice – sunny, eighties, calm winds. Once on the water the temperature was even cooler. It was perfect for a three day gunk-hole and fishing adventure.

After a relaxing night on the water I awoke to the breaking dawn without need of alarm clock and motored us over to our starting location, the northwest side of the lake by Shannon Creek. As I set out our four lines I noted a distinct lack of boats on the water. Being used to the usual 100-150 boats on the lake, I felt like it was wide open spaces with a mere two dozen boats on the water. I set our rods to staggered depths of 30, 25, 20, and 15 to start. We ran the usual sockeye gear - dodgers, sling blades, and a variety of pink-red terminal variations, all with double hooks in a multitude of colors. Added to that smilie blades and my own secret bait and we were ready for action.

5am turned into 6am and we saw one fish caught. I was marking fish, and in fact we picked up two kokanee and a bull trout to keep things entertaining. At 6:20am our port rod at 15 feet deep releases with a fish. I grab the rod but it’s off. At the same time I start bringing up the downrigger, and BAMM the deep rod goes off (probably at around 15 feet also). I grab this rod and am playing a feisty sockeye. Now the starboard deep rod at 25 feet goes off! JoAnn grabs this rod and we are both playing fish. What happened next, while discouraging, gave me vital information which I took to heart for the rest of the trip. My fish was close to the boat, having done a 12 foot setback. As a consequence, the fish broke the leader with a head-thrashing run. Meanwhile JoAnn was having a better job with her fish, but again, having been fishing kokanee all spring, we were out of practice on these bigger fish. A bit too much horsing in saw JoAnn’s fish take a mighty leap and break her line, then dance off with my 50/50 dodger as added insult.

That was it for the morning, and we only saw a couple caught, but even so, my hopes were high for Monday. I learned a valuable lesson with this first take morning fire drill. First, I set my deep rods back 30 feet to give some room for the fish to maneuver. Second, I set the drags looser than they were. “Let em run” I told JoAnn. Third, I spent the afternoon siesta time tying leaders and checking mainline knots.

Sunday. The weather had changed a bit on us as some scattered dark clouds passed over us while we watched our evening morning at our moorage. And then we started getting a bit of rain of all things. I secured the boat and we went to bed. I never sleep easily when weather comes up, even though we have a good anchor and safe anchorage. In any case, dawn came with a beautiful sunrise and calm waters.

I will say this, as anglers we live for days such as the one we had on Monday. Gear in the water at 5am, and fish started hitting for us at 5:15am, one after another it seemed. In no time we had our first chrome fish in the boat, having learned and applied the lessons from Sunday morning. The fish are running 4-5 pounds for an average fish this year and as always are a blast to catch. We had good action from those first two fish up until 9:30am when the bite died off. All rods and all depths brought in fish. Depths we had best success at were 35 feet and 25 feet. We also had action as deep as 40 feet and as shallow as 15 feet. No fish seemed interested below 40 feet, although we did mark a fair number and tried for them. When the morning bite was over we counted 5 in the cooler and 2 lost fish. We tried our best to get number 6, even going out in the evening, but it was not to be.

Last year wasn’t great for fishing Baker, at least when we went, and we even came home a day early. So I must say I was impressed that 386 fish were being so cooperative!

Tuesday we were at it again, and talking to a passing boat found out that the lake count on Monday was now at 700 fish transported up. By the way, it sure is fun seeing other anglers from previous years out on the water and we enjoyed chatting with you as we trolled back and forth.

Tuesday the bite slowed down, but it wasn’t dead. We saw a couple caught, and our chance came at 7:15 when our deep rod (40 feet down) exploded with a fish. This was easily the fish of the trip. It was my turned and I played her carefully, bringing my rod tip down when she surfaced to discourage jumping, which worked pretty well. JoAnn did an excellent job as she slid the net under her, and as we brought the net into the boat the hooks fell out of the fish’s mouth. Netted just in the nick of time! This fish (it turned out to be a hen with full egg skeins) was in the 7 pound class, a Baker Lake slab, the kind of fish the lake is renowned for.

We managed to catch one more fish at 25 feet and lose one at 25 feet that jumped behind the boat before even disturbing the rod. As the clock hit 10am we began putting away our gear. Three days of fishing and 7 beautiful deep red meat sockeye. From a lake with only around 700 fish in it means it should only get better. Hopefully the talk of the run being only late is correct and we’ll have several more weeks of excellent fishing in the most scenic location there is for catching sockeye in Washington.

I hope to see you out there!

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