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We finally got a burbot trip in with Craig Dowdy of YJ Guide Service. Debbie & I have been trying to make this happen for a couple years, but between schedule conflicts, arctic conditions, and poor water conditions, just haven't been able to swing it, until yesterday.

Have to thank my brother Jim who secretly paid for our trip for my birthday last year, and Craig for allowing us to carry over to this year when an arctic cold front blew in on the one day we could go last year and poor water conditions basically closed burbot fishing the rest of the season.

Even though reports haven't been overly optimistic, and we had already rescheduled once this year, we decided to give it a go. Craig offered to chase walleye, which were biting, if the burbot wouldn't cooperate. So we set a date and made it happen.

I'm not going to provide location, gear, or bait detail, if you want that info contact Craig and book a trip. Also note I have removed location identifying shoreline references from my pictures out of respect for Craig.

What I will say is we found some burbot and put limits in the cooler over a span of 2 1/2 - 3hrs. Once we had limits in the cooler, since we couldn't cull the burbot, Debbie said let's go after some walleye, which we did. We spent about 1 1/2 hrs or so fishing for walleye and put a dozen eater size ones in the cooler before ending our trip.

Craig was a great host and we really enjoyed our time on the water with him. He taught us how to fish for a new species as well as a new technique for walleye. Awesome experience and Debbie really enjoyed the time out.

Thanks for a great day Craig we WILL do this again. :-)

Mike Carey

1/27/2015 4:46:00 PM

awesomeness! I love the snake fish, they look so cool. Craig is the Guy to fish burbot with!

Rocky

1/27/2015 5:56:00 PM

Good job Craig I think they look cool my wife says they are ugly thanks for the report .

downriggeral

1/27/2015 7:11:00 PM

Way to go you guys and gal! looks like grins all around. Can't believe Debbie was able to hang on to one of those slippery burbots long enough for a picture.

YJ Guide Service

1/27/2015 7:44:00 PM

Thanks guys for a fun day it was a blast glad the fish were willing to bite. We didn't get any today I guess that's fishing. We did limit on Walleye though...Good fishing everyone...

ridgeratt

1/27/2015 8:22:00 PM

Nice batch of Burbots. They look like they run a shade smaller than other photos. Maybe they just haven't started showing up yet. This is the first report I have seen.

Good job!!

Kekedatackleco

1/27/2015 11:05:00 PM

That's awesome! We've had them a few times while beach camping and man they are good. With Craig you have a great chance at an outstanding day of Burbot AND Walleye fishing. You're right Phil, if you want to learn how to fish these you should definitely book a trip with Craig. I'm sure that was a fun day on the water.

hewesfisher

1/28/2015 6:31:00 AM

Fillets seasoned with little salt, pepper, garlic powder and pan fried in butter. Mmmm, mmmm! Have a few other recipes to try, and with 7lbs of fillets in the freezer, plenty to experiment with. Was a strange sensation to have someone else do all the things I'm used to, like launch, drive the boat, get on target, bait hooks (not mine) net the catch, etc., but it was sooo fun. :-)

YJ Guide Service

1/28/2015 7:48:00 PM

Fish this year are a little smaller than years past it seems.

kenbarb

1/29/2015 6:54:00 PM

Hewesfisher that was a good report, Barb and I fished the upper part of Lake Chelan near the Stehekin River confluence for Burbot, when set lines were legal. Ten hooks per set line was allowed, we would sometimes pull in ten fish per line. They are really good eating when they are fresh, but after freezing the meat was like rubber, I tried vacuum sealing, and freezing in water, but they were still tough, we ended up just keeping what we could eat fresh, and giving the rest away to friends in Stehekin, they were really glad to get them.

hewesfisher

1/31/2015 10:16:00 AM

Hmm, guess we'll find out with the next batch we prepare. I sure hope they are still good. I know the walleye will be. :-)

hewesfisher

2/2/2015 7:12:00 AM

To follow-up on burbot quality that's been frozen. Debbie fixed some for dinner yesterday and I could detect no difference from fresh. I do, however, have a commercial grade chamber vacuum sealer so maybe that makes a difference? I did some research on freezing burbot, and from multiple sources, it seems 50/50 on freezing as being a good storage method. One thing that was consistent is burbot has a short shelf life and for best eating should be consumed within 2 months. We'll see how it is after another couple weeks in the freezer. Just sharing our personal experience. ;-)

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