I called my fishing buddy Brian Anantatmula to see if he wanted to go to Chelan to fish for kokanee last Friday. He said he and his son Josh and daughter Avary were already planning to go and I would be welcome to join them. You bet, I said, and met them in Wenatchee at 5:15. We launched above the dam and ran up to the Chelan Shores condos. There were a bunch of boats there, but not many kokanee. Brian decided to try a bit further up the lake and we put our gear back out below Rocky Point. There they were. We trolled a straight line past Rocky Point on up toward Mill Bay and were into fish constantly. It got hectic at times as we had two or three fish on at once. He had two downriggers out and three rods with lead balls on his big Rabalo. He had squidders that he tied himself and dodgers he had tricked up on all the rods. His corn recipe smelled awful, but the kokanee loved it. We got off to a slow start, but when Brian got us onto the fish we had 40 nice kokanee in cooler by 11 o’clock.
The Anantatmula family poses with one of the 40 kokanee we landed while fishing on their boat on Lake Chelan last Friday.