Hard to believe I missed the winter fishery at my favorite lake, but that's how life is sometimes. Splashed the boat yesterday in hopes of finding some kokanee but the debris laden lake kept us much further upstream from where good koke waters are. Sure didn't keep us from trying. ;-)

We worked the shoreline and deep water from Lincoln to below Sterling Point and only caught recent net pen fish for our efforts. Better than nothing we agreed. Once around the bend from Sterling, the water was much cleaner, so we hauled gear and motored on down to Whitestone. Found a big debris field just upstream of the bend, picked our way through, and then over to shoreline to start our troll. We were out of the net pen fish, think we picked up 3, but my buddy caught a 15" walleye in 200+ feet of water which he decided to keep. Shortly after I caught a decent 17 1/2" rainbow just under 2lbs and it joined the walleye in makeshift "cooler" aka converted livewell.

We fished leaded line with pink flies, me with a Kekeda and my buddy had a pink hootchie/smile blade combo of some kind. Though I expected nothing from doing so, I also long lined a large Rapala in rainbow color "just because". I ran my gear 150' behind the boat and my buddy was 170' back. The plug was 225' back. Bait, when used, was garlic scented corn and/or Gulp maggots.

Trip plans were to be back at Seven Bays by 1pm, so at 12:30 we pulled gear and headed that direction not knowing where the debris fields would be almost 6hrs later.

We had nice conditions most of the morning, light cool breeze, mostly calm water, no other boats to be seen, and a beautiful sunny day. It was over 90° by the time we reached the marina and perfect time for us to pull the boat and head for home.

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