Wow, one of the most memorable 3.5 hours and 7 fish days I've ever had. I went by myself to lake Whatcom for the first time tonight to try and get my first smallmouth bass on a fly rod. I had the boat wet by 5:30 and headed west from to target the old pilings just off from the park. On my 2nd Cast I had a strong bite and started fighting a good fish. I thought I was surely going to have an impressive start to my bass flyfishing career when out of the water jumped a big cutthroat with the bass fly hanging on its lip. I fought it to the net and snapped a quick picture before sending it back. My new personal best cutthroat on the fly! The very next cast I hooked into another respectable cutthroat that pit up a heck of a show jumping across the surface. I tried for a while to get another trout, but the school had either moved on or been spooked enough to go off the bite.

I returned my focus to bass and started working docks northward. I did manage to get one bass to come out and take my fly, so the skunk is off me, but I left plenty of room to improve on size. I kept working docks for a while longer, but soon gave into my curiosity to check out what kokanee opportunity there was on the north end of the lake, trading my flyrod for a spinnig rod.

I found some schools of kokanee suspended 40' deep in 80' of water. They turned out to be willing biters, and I managed to get 4 in the cooler before it was time to head home. Size was smaller than samish, but not by much.

What a night on the lake. Hard to believe that I've been fishing whatcom county lakes over a year and have managed to miss out on this one until now. I will be back and soon.

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