Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service - We fish on Lake Chelan and other North Central Washington waters in year round comfort.
You catch them in COMFORT! Bring your family and/or friends out on our 24 foot Bayliner Ciera Express. For your comfort, it features: enclosed cabin; cabin heat; private/inside marine toilet; games and VCR for children; hot and cold running water available seasonally; stove; and a full line of safety gear. Families and couples are welcomed and encouraged to book our service. The boat accommodates a maximum of six.
Large parties are accommodated. We also offer lodging at our home through VacationinChelan.com for visitors to the Manson area.
This report reflects a trip two friends and I took to Lake Pateros in Okanogan county January 28th and 29th. We met up in Monroe at 630am and were heading towards Pateros by 7am. We arrived in Pateros at around 1130am checked into the Lake Pateros Motor Inn and hit the water by 1230pm. I have to start by saying that the people at the Pateros Motor Inn are very friendly and accomadating to your needs and the rooms are very reasonably priced and include access to their own dock and boat lauch both which were very convenient. The 3 of us had never fished the lake before so we were going off of research we had done in the weeks prior. I called Hooked On Toys in Wenatchee for a rundown of the fishery and also contacted Darrell and Dad's Guide Service for more information, both resources were very helpful. We ran the boat over to "The rocks" SW of the hotel (only about 1.5 miles) and were fishing bobber/jig combos between 10 and 40 feet with our presentations from 2 - 10 feet up off the bottom. The majority of our fish were pulled from 18-25 feet with our gear down to 20 feet. The first day was a learning process, but we eventually figured out how to keep the boat drifting the same speed as the bobbers and you could make one long pass through the area with just one cast if it was positioned correctly, the longer you kept the bait in the water the better chance it seemed you would have of hooking up. We hooked out first steelhead within an hour of fishing, and I proceeded to hook 2 fish in 2 casts back to back a nice Nate around 10 or 12 lbs and a little hatchery fish around 5lbs which we kept. We ended up going 3 for 4 before 430-5pm on Friday afternoon and called it quits for the day. We ate at the restaurant by the shell station in Pateros that night, although I wouldn't highly recommend it, the food was "ok" but the prices were a bit high.
The next morning we got up at 6am and started getting the gear in the boat and making a game plan for the day. We got the boat launched and headed back over to the rocks around 7am in the company of 5 other boats. We were the only ones throwing bobbers, everyone else seemed to be partial to trolling plugs and we saw 1 fish caught early on by the trollers, and then another one around 4pm, but those were the only 2 troll caught fish we saw that day and our bobbers seemed to be vastly out producing the trollers. Saturday was slower than Friday, and we likened it to the fact that a fierce cold front was forecasted to roll in beginning Sunday. We still managed to boat several more steelhead and crackered off a few more that we never got a look at. All the fish we caught in the 2 days were big natives, mostly hens, with the exception of the 1 5lb hatcher fish we got on Friday afternoon. The winning jig color for the weekend was dark purple, or purple and black, all black also produced several fish. We tipped our offerings with shrimp that we cured in Pautzke's Fire Cure cut into 1" sections. We fished until sundown on Saturday and called it a day.
This area is very remote and beautiful. If the weather cooperates it can be very enjoyable winter fishing. We saw tons of diving birds, ducks, qual, eagles, hawks, and loons throughout the area and would love to come back and explore the lake more in the future. After fishing Saturday we ran into Breweter and ate at the mexican joint Los Comperos, it was delicious and the service was top notch. I highly recommend stopping in here for some hot food if you are in the area, the prices are good and the portions are great we all left with full bellies and smiling faces.
By my count you boated (1) fish early on Sat with bobberin gear and we boated (1) fish early on Sat with trolling gear. I wouldn't call that outproducing us trollers ;-)
Great report! Did you try trolling from the motel to the mouth of the river? It can be very productive. I went with a guide & that is the first place we tried. Then, we moved to the rocks, & then on the opposite side. We used the same methods that you did. He did shorten the hair on the jigs to give better presentation. The Lake Pateros Motor Inn can't be beat. I know they have new management & I hope they do as good as the old couple that retired. Try fishing for kings in the summer. You'll love it!
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Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service - We fish on Lake Chelan and other North Central Washington waters in year round comfort.
You catch them in COMFORT! Bring your family and/or friends out on our 24 foot Bayliner Ciera Express. For your comfort, it features: enclosed cabin; cabin heat; private/inside marine toilet; games and VCR for children; hot and cold running water available seasonally; stove; and a full line of safety gear. Families and couples are welcomed and encouraged to book our service. The boat accommodates a maximum of six.
Large parties are accommodated. We also offer lodging at our home through VacationinChelan.com for visitors to the Manson area.
