The Fishin' Magician: Success on Chelan

I reported earlier that I had a very tough day fishing for kokanee on Lake Chelan. My group fished hard for many hours and only came up with one fish for our efforts. Well, I wasn't about to give up and went back to Chelan last Sunday to try again. My brother Rick and I had much better luck.

We found fish out in the middle near the blue roofs and although we had a slow start, ended up with a good catch. When the wind blew us off the lake, at about mid day, we had 10 nice kokanee in the cooler. Once again we found most of the fish hanging between 70 and 90 feet and pink or purple hoochies trolled behind small dodgers did the job.

The size of the kokanee is holding up, with most of our catch ranging in size from 16 to 17 inches. The bite was much better on Sunday for the other boats on the lake, too. The kokanee action should hold up through May and perhaps well into June.

Don't forget your new fishing license before this weekend. Also, send in your steelhead and salmon punch cards from last season. They are due back to the Department by the end of the month.