I was to meet my friend James Lebow at the launch in Brewster at 4 a.m., so I was up at 1:30 on Wednesday morning. Traffic at the ramp wasn’t too busy, so we arrived at the fishing grounds at about 4:. There was a fair number of boats trolling off the mouth of the Okanogan River and in the channel below it, and we could already see nets out and sockeye being landed. We were focused on getting kings to start. We had an old style Twisted Sister Super Bait on one downrigger, a plug cut style Hot Tamale on the other downrigger rod, and a plug cut style Mountain Dew out the back on a 12 ounce lead ball. We had a king on just after 5, and that was the first of three kings that we lost right at the boat. If there is a way to screw up netting a king, I did it. It was terrible. The king bite has slowed a bit, so we decided to put a sockeye rig on the back rod, on a four ounce lead ball. Now we were busy. While we were working our way to a limit of sockeye we hooked another king, and James “changed the dynamic” by grabbing the net and landed the king. It was a frustrating but terrific day on the Brewster Pool.
James Lebow netted this nice king for me on the Brewster Pool on Wednesday.