We had to run to Chelan Saturday and beyond business matters we did some hiking, general touristing, wine and cider tasting and lots of driving. Oddly we ended up getting home pretty late so when Sunday morning rolled around, by the time the chores and work emails were taken care of it was late morning. I almost didn’t hook the boat up and head to the lake but I wanted run the motor again and assure that I am not having additional problems with my Yammy. Decision made I’m on the road when ½ way to the lake I realized that the fish finder was at home. Oh-bother, I turn around and start over again…

Arriving at Lake Cavanaugh way later than planned I launched and got underway. First things first, the motor was running fantastic. I ran around the lake a few times, starting, stopping, fast, slow, off and restarting it without a hiccup so it was time to fish. I only had a couple hours and the trip was more about the motor so when I saw that the lake surface temperature had dropped to 49 degrees I didn’t target kokanee. Instead I focused on hunting cutthroat while chasing larger meter marks (Cavanaugh and I have a thing, I think that there are some huge cutts lurking somewhere in the lake…). I ran Rapalas on a 60’ drop-back paying close attention to any meter marks in 30’ - 50’ of water while running at 1.1-1.6 mph. The fishing was spectacular with many doubles to keep things chaotic. I was running unscented 3-4” Rapalas in rainbow trout color and gold with an orange belly. After settling on these two colors the action was consistent with no real color preference. I didn’t count but had steady action during the few hours that I fished. In the end I caught and released about 30 fish, 12” to about 19”. I took home 5 fish, 11 -15 inches that were injured. I lost one fish at the net that I would estimate at 23-24” and maybe around 3 or 4 pounds. The Rapala caught on the net before I was able to scoop up my thrashing opponent.

Trip was a blast, I caught lots of fish and the motor ran great. I think that my motor woes were the result of the continued use of bad ethanol fuel (around 500 hours). I changed the onboard fuel filter, installed a remote fuel/water separator, drained the VST and I found local ethanol free fuel. Add in a can of SeaFoam and with fingers crossed I think that all is good between my Yammy and I.

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