Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service
Trolling saltwater gear in an alpine lake for sockeye is not common, we are fortunate to live in an area where this is an annual event.
We got to the launch at swift creek about 4:30AM. Being so early in the season, there were not 1000 rigs inline to put in. Three people ahead of us, we were parked and in the water by 4:45. There is an almost instinctual draw to fish areas where there are other boats up there, the mind tells you, “that’s where the fish are.” Full lemming paradigm in effect, we headed toward the area where the other boats were floating about. With both of us being greedy, we of course have two pole endorsements, but only two downriggers total on the vessel. The standby chrome 0 dodger with 12” leader, pink hoochie skirt and double gamakatsu 2/0 (red) setup was our unanimous choice for the downriggers, with the other pole setup with a slight variation, same size dodger, but I went with a 50/50, a 40z banana weight and a pink mac’s smile blade with a few beads underneath it, double hook.
At 5AM we were fishing, three of our four lines in the water, with high hopes. As my was putting together his second setup, BANG…..BANG, BANG, BANG the downrigger on his side goes off so hard I thought there was a glacier coming down the side of Baker. He drops whatever was in his hands and sets the hook. For such a hard biter, the fish was rather small, but by 5:10 AM, we had our first sockeye to the boat. This was going to be a great day. As the sun started to come up, and the 1964 merc 4.5hp kicker slowly chugged us along, the gravity of the situation began to sink in. Nobody was hooking up, was this first early fish a fluke? Was the day not going to be so great after all. A sinking feeling of impending doom consumed me as I realized the bite was not so great, and that we had actually been very lucky to get the one fish. By 8:30AM 33.3% of the total fish I saw captured on the lake had been landed by us, so from a purely statistical standpoint, we were doing phenomenal. We made our way to the other side of the lake and gave that a try for awhile…… no dice. We decided to wrap it up around 9:30, both of us knowing from prior experience that the bite only gets worse as the day progresses. On our way back to the launch we saw a breach off in the distance and swung by to have a look. Sure enough, George Carlin and his wife, Mrs. Carlin were landing a nice 7 pounder off the stern of their red hewes, now we had only 25% of the total catch.
Dramatics aside, I had a good time up there today. I was not expecting a lot being that the numbers are not substantial yet. These fish are coming late, but they are coming. They had almost 2000 to the trap yesterday, so I’m hopeful. This may turn out to be a really good season up there. I’ll be back every few days so that when it does pick up, I’m getting my share of meat. Soon it will look like seafair weekend up there. I was able to get some decent underwater footage of PSE releasing about 400 fish for WDFW. Link posted below. Tight lines.
http://youtu.be/bgQWWjwMGt4
-Salmonerd
Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service