Long time reader only my second post. Staying at the Worldmark in Chelan and Dad brought his boat. We have been enjoying the 3-4 lb Kokanee from Lake Roosevelt so even though we picked up 8 Kokanee yesterday morning the size left a little to be desired, hard to beat those kokes from Roosevelt right now. We decided today to target the Mackinaw with the downriggers and use an once of weight to go after kokes on the surface. Trolling 1-1.2 mph we pulled Ace Hi Fly for the Macks and wedding rings and hoochies for the kokes. We landed a couple Kokanee and after watching Joe from Lake Chelan adventures land a few Macks we knew we were in the right area for the Macks. This being out first time fishing for them we doubted what we were doing after not getting any for the first few hours and talked about going into Wenatchee for more gear. Well as usual when you start talking about leaving the fish start biting. We hooked a couple nice 3 lb lake trout and thought hey we can do this. Well the rain stared getting heavier and my comment to the wife about being back at 11 was going out the window I told Dad 10 minute warning, no fish in next ten minutes we are going in. Well as we were putting away Kokanee gear dad says he that one is out of the rigger. Seeing no action I took my time going over to get the pole thinking I was just going to bring it up and put it away. Then I say I think we snagged the bottom, but then it wiggled. I hand the pole to dad and after he struggles with it a bit and I give him a lot of advice, I realize this isn't your average fish. I bring up the other rigger line getting everything out of the way. After a 10 minute battle dad gets up the fish which ends up being a 22lb Mackinaw! Biggest fish on the boat and biggest fish for dad, definitely some beginners luck with the Macks. We decided to head in because by now it's really raining and I'm imagining the scene from Caddyshack where he says he doesn't think the heavy stuff is going to come down for a while.

Thanks to all those who have posted tips to catching these fish it was truly a monster who we named Walter until we saw it was Walterette.

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