Another kokanee lake checked off my bucket list.

I’d been wanting to check out Kachess for a few years and finally got to go. I got to fished with my son James and his girlfriend Jenna. We started out at 6:30am and I was happy to see the concrete boat launch (a very good one, BTW) was not high and dry. Launching and retrieving the boat was a breeze today.

We started fishing just out from the launch and worked the general area with three rods, one stacked. Standard kokanee rigs. The fishfinder showed fish scattered at 40-60 feet so I ran gear down at 50, 60 and a stacked rod at 40 feet deep. Action started right away on all gear and all depths. The first fish came in shiny and 12”, but definitely on the skinny side. We had a good bite that lasted an hour and a half and boated a half dozen fish and lost a few. All fish were running 10-12”, mostly 11” fish and all were slender. Highlight of the morning was catching (and releasing) a 16” bull trout, taken at 55 feet deep. He put up a great fight! I gently released him back to the lake. After that the bite died as quick as it started and at 10am we pulled gear and ran down to the dam.

It was a good location change because within minutes of dropping the gear down we were again into fish. But, unlike our first spot, at the dam all the fish came in on one rod and one depth. Even switching to an almost identical set up and fishing +/- five feet of the hot rod made no difference. Weird. In any case, we scratched out another half dozen fish and called it a day at noon.

BTW, I marked a lot of fish in the 70-80 range but could not get any of them to bite our offerings.
Total fish for the three of us was 15 and probably lost 6-7 others.

If you’re interested in fishing this lake for kokanee I would recommend it. The numbers are there, the size is “just barely” there. The fish are a bit skinny but filleted out fine. The limit is a generous ten fish, but the lake is a no two rod endorsement lake. It’s a beautiful lake with minimal development and clearcuts. Mountain peaks and wooded hills surround. The forest service campground is very nice and the boat launch is a good one. Kachess is not near as low as Keechelus, which is a stump graveyard right now and I doubt you could even launch a boat. There was just one other boat out there fishing, and not for kokanee. At just 75 miles from Redmond it’s a short drive by I-90. You’d take more time getting stuck in Seattle traffic trying to hit local lakes.

---