On July 6th I found out Baker was opening early. Packed up for last minute fishing and camping trip and got there about 0500 on Thursday with son and father in law. Thursday was best sockeye fishing I have ever seen at Baker Lake. Almost everyone had a lot of hook ups. The fish were not picky and hit pretty much anything reasonable. Depth from 30' to 50' with trolling speed .8mph to 1.2 mph worked best. Ended the day with 10 fish in the boat and 5 lost. Two fish were caught on ultra light Kokanee polls which was a lot of fun but took a while to land. Friday the fishing was a little harder and we had some bad luck. Broke belt on a down rigger, broke main line on Kokanee poll as soon as fish jumped out of the water, broke tip on a pole when dealing with drift wood debris. Ran into Burlington to buy belt for down rigger only to get back and find out it was the wrong size. Ended Friday with only two in the boat and lost several. The two we got in the boat were both hooked outside the mouth so it seemed they were not hitting very well. Saturday morning the fishing fleet had arrived. Fishing was pretty slow but we managed to boat two. We were able to locate them on the fish finder in several areas but they were not interested. Ended the morning with two before having to pack up and head home. I had tied up multiple types of rigs(all with double red 2/0 hooks) including miniature pink hoochie, hoochie with smile blade, pink beads with smile blade, and bare hooks. Leaders 8-12" seemed to work best but saw some caught on longer leaders. Used silver and 50/50 dodgers. I had live sand shrimp, pink cured sand shrimp, canned cured coon shrimp, small cooked cocktail shrimp cured with pink Fire Ball and shoe peg corn cured with pink Fire Ball(figured if Kokanee like it, why not sockeye). First day we caught a lot with the corn! I decided my favorite bait was top hook baited with coon shrimp tail and bottom hook with the corn. The cocktail shrimp worked good the first day but got too soft the second day. When the fishing was slow, we got more hits on the rigs with the smile blade. Plan on heading back for another round the 17-20th. Hope you can make it to Baker this year and good luck.

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