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 was my first visit to Roosevelt, seeking some of these monster Kokes I keep reading about. I fish Kokanee in Pend Orielle and Hayden regularly and the thought of catching a 20+ inch 4+lb blueback was just too intriguing, I finally found the time to do it.
I launched from Spring Canyon a little after 6:00pm and it seemed a little late to run up to Swawila so I just went straight across to the north side. Trolled along the shore toward the dam for an hour or so, no take downs and almost nothing marked. As the skies were beginning to dim, I decided to make my way back to the launch. I cut straight across just past a small buoy labeled "WDFW". Got about halfway across and a pole went off. Boated a fish that was 19.5" and 3.8lbs.Never marked him on the finder. Picked him up with the rigger set to 42 feet on a pink hoochie behind a sling blade and then a couple strings of ford fenders. Used shoepeg corn and dipped the hoochie in krill anise.
I circled around worked that area as long I could given the rapidly disappearing daylight, but no takers. Pulled the boat out of the water in near darkness.
The next morning, I was on the water about 5 and went back to that area. Worked it for an hour or so and got one hit that didn't stick. Then I pulled everything up and shot up to Swawila. I throttled down the boat on the north end amd I was immediately marking fish in the 15-25 foot range. I put the lines out and set one rigger to 25 feet and sure enough, within a couple minutes I had one. But it was a dinky little 12 inch rainbow. Back in he went.
I put the lines farther down and started trolling toward the other 6-8 boats in the area to the south of me. As I was getting there, it started to rain. I trolled around marking fish a few fish but found no takers. The rain kept getting worse. I was watching some other boats and I noticed something odd. There were a couple boats trolling straight toward the shore and then straight back out, in one area. Zooming out my Humminbird's lake map, I could see a channel leading to a cut in the hills. Ah-Ha, a drainage! Kokes love places where creeks dump into lakes!
It was pretty narrow, so I trolled around outside until those guys got tired of it and left. I went into this narrow channel pretty much straight toward the shore. Marked a few fish. I was about at the place where I had to do the U-turn, and my eyes were on the GPS trying to get my position just right to make the turn in the largest radius possible to keep my lines from crossing. I looked up for a second and saw one of my poles standing up and getting tugged on. A few minutes later I had a nice 20 incher that weighed right at 4lbs. Woo-hoo! Got that one at 65 feet on the rigger.
I made a total of 3 passes into and back out of the channel and that was the only bite I got. By then the wind was coming up, so I was dealing with both wind AND rain, and I was rocking and rolling. I headed back to the launch to the warmth and safety of my camper to wait it out, which is where I'm typing this from. The rain has stopped but the wind persists. Not sure if I'll go out one more time and go down by the dam again or just pack it up.
All in all, though, I can't complain. I've caught thousands of bluebacks in my life, but these two are number one and number two in size. These Roosevelt Kokanee are amazing. A bit tough to catch, at least on this trip for me, but worth the effort.
I was up at Swalliwa this morning also in the downpour. Fished from about 5:30am to 11:00am until the dog and I had enough of the wind and rain. I got a 22" koke and was hoping to get the last one but lost it right at the boat. 2-3 other take downs that didn't stick. 40' on the downrigger. I got limit yesterday by 9:00am. All fish caught at 40' - 50'. These are beautiful trophy fish. I wonder if any knows if in years past they got this big. I've been fishing it for the last 10 or so years and these have been the biggest i have caught.
Thanks for the comments guys. Just ate one of these for the first time last night. Flavor was out of this world, best salmon I've ever tasted. Extremely oily, too, for whatever reason. Salmon oil is good for you.
One of these fish cut really orange, and the other cut pure red. I don't know why the difference. Amazing fish any way you cut 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.
