Whew! What a weekend! Three of my good buddies joined me this weekend for the Something Catchy Derby on Lake Chelan. This report will break down three days of fishing.

Friday- 5 stars

We began the day Friday up lake hoping to find the same schools I have been doing very well with the last few weeks. One small problem, they werent there. Pulled gear and ran into the lower basin. Gear down ranging from 80-120 and we had a triple, then a quad, and it continued like that throughout the morning until we called it around 2pm with a little over 30 in the box.

Saturday- 4.5 Stars.

The BIG day, day one of the derby. We launched at 4 am and had lines in the water shortly after. We fished until almost 7:45 without a bite, then we found them. Quickly putting 8 in the box including some very nice fish! Then we were averaging 1-2 fish an hour. Not what I was use to on Chelan. Change of game plan and we dropped to smaller lures and fished very deep. getting kokanee from 150-200' deep. I am guessing that had to do with the glass calm conditions and the increased pressure. The thing with fishing that deep is you never know what you are going to catch. We were catching and hanging out when my starboard bottom rod hit the water and started burning drag. I knew what it was and quickly had the guys pull the rods and downriggers and we spun the boat and began the chase. After 20 minutes I slid the net under a very nice 8 pound Chelan Chinook! We ended the Afternoon with a nice 3 o'clock bite. Putting 11 fish in the box in one hour before we had to high tail it to the weigh in. As of day one we were sitting nicely in 3rd for biggest and 2nd for boat weight.

Sunday- 5 star.

We only had till noon to fish so we started off in the same area we ended on Saturday, running gear from 80-110 we got into a nice morning bite and quickly put 11 in the cooler, then it died. We spent the next few hours scratching out a few fish before heading into mill bay to try catching a rainbow. We hooked into a very healthy bow but it made one last run before the boat running into my downrigger and earning its freedom.

We placed 5th in the derby for Biggest Fish and 4th for biggest 10 Kokanee. What a blast! The increased fishing pressure and the calm, hot weather made for tuffer fishing but we stuck it out and did better then most boats. We boated the second most fish out of anyone at the derby which made me feel pretty good. Now onto Lake Stevens until my last chelan trip of the year coming up at the end of the month for the WaLakes meet up!

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