Another early AM departure. One of my fishing buddies and I left the house at 2:30 and we were gear down in Baker Lake by 4:00. We were running 4 rods, 2 off the down riggers and 2 with 4 ounces of lead. We started with the down riggers both running at 18’ and the other rods at 18 pulls and 33 pulls. At the business end of things were 50/50 “0” dodgers followed by my new, still in development sockeye flies. The flies were run 8-10” behind the dodgers and they were tipped with a bit of cured shrimp.

Almost immediately after setting all the gear the rigger at 18’ starts bouncing and the clip pops loose. First fish always goes to the guest fisherman so I man the net while the fish makes one reel burning run after the next. After what seemed like forever I slide the net under a beautiful, chrome 7 pound sockeye. We reset all the gear and get back to business. Through the next ½ hour we had 3 more fish come out to play but then the bite just shut down.

In search of a bit e or two we started working our way west from our original location off the Noisy Creek area. At about Silver Creek one of the rods goes off and a little while later we slide the net under a nice dolly, which posed for a picture or two before being released healthy and swimming strong. A short while later, another rod is doubled over and this time the fish was clearly a sockeye. Many long runs, jumps and a trip through the downrigger cables later in the net goes the twin of our first fish. My fishing buddy had to get home to pick up his little one from the babysitter so our day was done. After a brief tour of a couple of the boat in campgrounds we head back to the ramp at Panorama Point.

Today the trolling speed of choice was 1.0-1.2 mph. All our fish were caught shallow, maybe at 18-28’. Again the “0” 50/50 dodger was the way to go. All our hits came off of meter marks, making the necessary adjustments to put our gear in the strike zone. The latest generation of my sockeye flies are proving to be quite successful, but time will tell whether or not they are the final version. The floating mine field of logs and debris has all but broke up but still use caution when navigating the east arm of the lake. It was a fun few hours on the water and as usual the scenery was spectacular.

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