Saturday was a busy one. I rolled out of bed early and got to the chores that had eluded me during the week. After the chores were done I decided to take the Whatcom County AIS (Aquatic Invasive Species) course and AIS certification test. ½ hour later I figured that since I had my AIS certificate I might as well head up to Lake Samish, get my AIS stickers and fish a little. Just a little, because more stuff to do and we were heading up to Skagit Speedway for a little evening clay based bedlam. Arriving at the lake I was declared AIS free so I launched the boat and was gear down just offshore from the boat ramp.

In my experience Lake Samish is kind of old school kokanee fishing so I started with a dodger/green and red wedding ring type of spinner combo on one side of the boat and a dodger/purple hoochie on the other side. Initially I set the riggers at 18’ and 28’. I didn’t have the gear down 20 seconds when both rods start doing the kokanee Konga, I ended up losing one of the fish and the other turned out to be respectable pea mouth chub but they were not the last fish to express and interest in my offerings. The next 45 minutes or so were kind of slow. A very slow pick while I sorted through gear, leader length, depth and whether or not to run lead line or the downriggers. I’ll save you the gory details but I did cycle through many gear combos before I came up with a couple that consistently got bit. I ended up running one line off one of the downriggers chasing meter marks. The other, a lead line setup at two colors. Both drew equal action but for some reason the fish were more aggressive when chasing down the lead line. Where I or my boat rarely loose a kokanee, Saturday I struggled. I was getting lots of action but would only put one fish in the box for every 8 or 9 that came sniffing around. I think that in the end the ratio was 2 for the downrigger and 3 on the lead line.

On Saturday the kokanee wanted short leaders, 6-8” with no spinner blade or smile blade. Orange seemed to be the color of the day. I settled on an orange version of my latest kokanee flies tipped with Shoepeg corn soaked in tuna juice and some sort of orange dodgers or attractors. I was running the downrigger gear on a setback of approximately 50’ and as previously mentioned 2 colors on the lead line rod. I run a 60’ top-shot on my lead line rigs. The water temperature varied 61-63 degrees depending on where on the lake I was trolling. My trolling speed was a pretty consistent at 1.4 mph. The downrigger action was at 18-48’ and you had to really pay attention. Many of the bites were just a change in the rhythm of the rod tip or dodger action. Once I settled in to a fish catching routine and after many drive-bys or long-releases I had put 4 fish in the box when I decided to chase something else for a bit thinking fish number 5 or my limit was just around the corner.

Not really caring what I caught, I just wanted to keep fishing so I broke out plain unscented Ralalas and started working the shallow water along the shoreline. I caught and released a number of cutthroat, a gazillion perch and a couple small smallmouth before I realized that my fishing window was quickly coming to a close. I decided to head for the smaller of the 2 lake chain and try to finish off my kokanee limit. Running the same gear and the same game plan as earlier I lost 8 or 9 fish before I was able to put the last fish in the box.

I had to get going but it was a fun few hours on the water. I even got to watch the fire helicopter dipping water out of the lake to fight a fire of some sort on a nearby ridge. In the end I went home with my limit of kokanee to a fat 12”. After the boat was safely tucked away in the garage we headed to Skagit Speedway for some dirt nachos and sprint car action.

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