Finally made a early season scouting trip up to Chelan. I'm with Anton on his reports. The fishing was slow and really had to work at finding fish, but we caught some quality fish. So the good news is there will be big kokes in Chelan again this year, maybe even bigger, and I'm glad I knew what to expect (thanks again Anton and others for updates).

I fished with my old man from 6:30 AM to 1 PM. The day didn't start out so smooth. I suppose there always has to be something. On my last trip I started clipping myself to the kill switch for the main motor (like you're supposed to) and then pulling it off after running. Head was in a lot of places and forgot it was in the jockey box of my boat with my keys. As I was relentlessly trying to crank over the main motor Shane Magnuson of Upper Columbia Guide Service kindly suggested that I try clipping and unclipping the kill switch. That's when I realized the clip wasn't even on... doh! Thanks for being a gentleman Shane and not making me feel like the idiot I am, true class, I'd go on a trip with you any day. Still learning to keep track of everything. Anyway, after that and some odd downrigger cable tangle up we were fishing.

Started by fishing the drop off/face of Mill bay. Had one shallow line, one deep. Picked a fish up at 6:45 on the "shallow" line as I was chatting away with my pops. I was telling him all about koke fishing and how it's done when I turn around and shout "fish!" and grab the rod. It's nice when some reality backs up the B.S. It was a decent 14" fish 40' down over 140' of water. Made it down to the Rocky Point area without anything else and found ourselves in a fleet. Marked several potential schools, some plankton and small fish but nothing real solid.

Made a turn back towards Mill Bay about 7:30 and right as we are passing another boat pops sees a rod doing the fish dance! I tell him to grab it and he starts reeling like a mad man. Tell him to take it easy a bit, its a kokanee after all. He gets it up to the boat after some good tugs from the fish and we get it in the ghetto koke net I have rigged up ( small net ducked tape to a bigger net's long handle).

I'm ecstatic, turns out to be the biggest kokanee I've ever seen in person and my old man got to catch it. It went 18 and 3/4 " and 2.2 lbs. Hope I hooked him on kokes, the last ones he caught were at Pend O'reille back in the day from a canoe and said they were 8-10". Anyway fish was over 160' of water, 50' down. Got tired of the crowd and the bite seemed to be off so went over to Minneapolis Beach which has produced well for me in the past. Not a sign of a single fish. Ran up to Wapato, apparently hitting some junk along the way (scratches and dent on keel), and trolled Manson Bay. Again nada. Seems like the early morning bite was key. Tight lines all!

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