NWFR Spring Gathering - A Fish Princess Adventure

Mike and the whole NWFR team put on another first class event for those of us that made the trek to Chelan for the weekend! Thanks to the NWFR team for hosting, to all of the sponsors who donated so generously to the event and to Randy and family for cooking-up the fish taco feast.

Our buddy Alan was kind enough to arrive early and hold our favorite camp site. We teamed-up again this year. I brought the house and Al brought the boat! We rolled into the State Park pretty late on Thursday evening, so late that by the time we got camp set-up and turned in for the evening it was past midnight. So much for an early start to our Friday fishing day...

We enjoy a fine breakfast together courtesy of chef Alan (downriggeral) then got down to the business of loading too much gear into the boat and heading for the launch. We put Al's boat in the water and started our fishing day around 10:00 AM. We left the lead core lines at camp figuring everything at Chelan was at depth and that it would be strictly a down rigger show.

We fished from just below the State Park down to the monument area and back over the course of 4 or 5 hours. We scratched out 5 kokanee and one mack fishing at depths from 25' to almost 100'. We caught fish on a combination of spinners, hoochies, and tuna-packed mini cut plug. Not a boat load but enough to keep the Fish Princess busy reeling on a few fish and making for smiles all around and a positive start to our Chelan adventure.

Upon returning to camp I cleaned the fish and prepared bison steaks, baked potatoes, and salad for supper. We decided on an early start to our day on Saturday and to at least test out the lead core tactics to see if they would produce. We turned-in early to be ready for a rock 'em, sock 'em Saturday!

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