Our maiden fishing voyage on “Red” is in the books. While we weren’t exactly under the spell of my usual kokanee mojo it was a good trip. Alarm went off at 4:00 and I was up, dressed, brushed and outside getting the boat ready by 4:05. The process is a bit of a learning curve, the old boat lived in the garage and was always ready to go. Not complaining but with the new boat living in the driveway I have to “get it ready” prior to heading down the road in quest of the day’s aquatic adventure. Although on this trip I did not forget anything it will only be a matter of time before I discover that the net, bait or fish finder is still at home and I have to make a u-turn. All gear on board we arrived at the WDFW launch facility on Lake Samish about 5:30 or so.

Launching at Lake Samish brought a number of firsts for Red. It was our first AIS inspection with a baitwell and a limited access bilge. It was also the first fishing trip and first no dock launch with the new boat. The AIS staff were friendly and professional in performing inspection duties. After updating my profile and boat information our inspection went smoothly and in no time we were given an OK to launch. Shortly thereafter the boat was floating with the bow headed away from shore.

Although the fishing gear was onboard we were still in shakedown/break-in mode so we made a few variable RPM runs with the main before we fired up the kicker and got to it. We have the kicker broke in but still have a few hours left on the main before we are back to our normal routine. All systems operating normally we got to chasing kokanee, or so we thought…

We fish Lake Samish a lot and decided to start across the lake from the launch where we have had good luck on late spring kokanee. Running 4 rods; two lead line rigs and two rods off the down riggers we got to business. I ran our usual setup in various color combinations on all four rods. Saturday, we fished ArrowFlash dodgers with my custom tied kokanee flies on 10-12” leaders tipped with garlic tuna corn. The lead line rigs were set at 1 ½ colors and 2 colors and my intent was to chase meter marks with the downriggers. Normally I relentlessly change gear and colors until I have the fish figured out but Saturday fishing was second to establishing our routine and figuring out the new electronics. We targeted 1.0-1.5 MPH in 65 degree water and as previously mentioned we ran a variety of colors; pearl white, chartreuse, purple and pink with no one color really standing out over the others.

Shortly after getting all 4 rods down one of the lead line rigs started the kokanee dance but after an abbreviated fight and surface display we lost the fish to a long release. From that point we had a number of drive-bys and a few other long releases but were not able to put any kokanee in the box. Kokanee zero but we had the catfish (yellow bullheads ) figured out. Apparently, Saturday they were partial to our kokanee gear. I am thinking that if we had targeted them with walleye gear or even just a slow-death hook, nightcrawler and dodger we would have had a catfish fry this weekend. As it was we caught a few, lost a few and even let them swim around in the livewell before we let them go at the end of our adventure.

Having other things to do our adventure came to a close by early afternoon. Although we did not slide the net under any kokanee our first fishing trip on Red was a success. Everything ran well and worked as expected. I will be able to launch and handle the boat solo, a key concern at my end. No real lessons learned, just need to figure how to keep the sand off of our feet when boarding from the beach. The day was a success and we look forward to future escapades on Red.

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