I wanted to give my brother-in-law Tom Verschuren a good fishing trip. I heard that the kokanee fishing had been pretty good on Lake Chelan, so I figured that would be the place to take him. I did just that last Sunday. I wouldn’t say it was a disaster, but the kokanee fishing fell short of my anticipation. We arrived at the edge of the fleet of anglers just above the Chelan Shores condos. We trolled and trolled and found a few fish and landed a few and lost just as many. I got impatient and decided to try some spots across the lake. I ran over to the Blue Roofs, then trolled toward Lakeside Park. Finally, we wound up right back where we started, and what do you know, there were fish here. I trolled a line in about 60 feet toward Rocky Point and saw small schools of kokanee fairly consistently. Now the wind had come up and we were taking a beating. I finally pulled in all the gear, and we headed for the launch at Mill Bay. I had broken one of the rules that I know all too well—Don’t Leave Fish to Find Fish. I paid for it.
There are lots of fat 13-inch kokanee in Lake Chelan this year.