WOW! Again I don’t know where to start, how to rate this trip of even which “Target Species” to use. Saturday morning get up without any hard fishing plans I finally decided to hitch up the boat and head for Lake Samish. Definitely a late start and I figured that the kokanee bit would be over so I decided to bring the seldom used warm water tackle bag and the kokanee gear. After a stop for ethanol free, ice and a bean-n-cheese I was headed north. Arriving at the WDFG launch the Whatcom County AIS inspection team was glad to have a customer, I was one of 3 rigs in to splash their boat Saturday morning. Sometime after 10:00 and finally underway I decided to head for the peace and quiet of the little lake.

After a bit of figuring out what the kokanee wanted, painted flashers and orange or purple lures (green, pink and shiny dodgers were on the no-troll list) it was hammer time. Whether it be luck or what, right off the bat I located a school of willing biters. No thanks to my net, after the first fish was safely in the icebox I kept working the same meter mark until my limit was onboard. I saved the meter mark on the GPS and just kept working it over going 7 for 5 and finishing with a double in 20 minutes. I was trolling black Arrow Flash dodgers followed by either a pink or a purple version of my new kokanee flies on a 10” leader tipped with tuna corn. I was running at 1.4 mph with one rigger at 28’ and the other at 38’ with a 60’ setback in around 90’ of water. Darn hot kokanee fishing made even more interesting by the fact that my net was having issues. As I went to net the first fish the telescoping section of the net handle and the net parted company with the fish in the net. Fortunately the hooks had caught in the net and I was able to reel in both the net and the fish. Unable to make field repairs I had to either bounce the fish or net the remainder of my bounty with my new shorty net. Limit onboard and still time to fish I headed back to the big lake for a little warm water escapades.

My original plan was to lazily troll plugs and see what happenstance brings. I caught a number of perch, had a ton of drive-bys and scratched out a few smallmouth but the wind was playing havoc with my stern steered boat so I decided to fish like the pros and work baits in specific areas for smallmouth. Starting with throwing plugs probably would have worked but the wind was not cooperating so I switched to a 4” curly-tail and got to work. While constantly adjusting the electric to back into the wind I was able to hold on a spot and started catching fish. Initially it was a lot of bites with one fish here, one there with no real pattern established. But then I really started paying attention to my presentation and the actual bite. Not an expert bass expert and probably never will be I learned to tell the difference between a perch and a smallmouth. The smallmouth would usually hit on the fall and not really bite but just sort of load the rod. Once I figured that out I knew when to swing and got into some hot smallmouth action. Fishing a number of spots I was able to hook 14 smallmouth with 6 or 7 of them going 13-14”. After a few pictures all fish were released safe and sound in hopes of catching them again.

What a day! First the awesome kokanee fishing and then the smallmouth. Good fishing or bad for the smallmouth I don’t really know. Never purposely fished for smallmouth before so I had no base line to judge by but I had a blast and will definitely target the smallmouth again.

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