I asked my wife what she wanted to do on our anniversary, and she said take the boat to Stehekin. When we were launching the boat, Zeke and Cody from Tri-Cities had just returned after three days of kokanee fishing. When they saw my truck they went nuts. They were huge fans and insisted that they give me their gear so I could try for kokanee. I had two rods in my boat and had planned to spend a little time trolling for cutthroat with some plugs. They gave me two small trolling blades and two of the white and pink rigs they had tied. They even gave me two lead balls, so I was able to get fairly deep. They had given their corn away and I couldn’t find any in Stehekin. So, when we got back from our walk to the famous Stehekin Bakery, I put the rods together rigged for sliding lead balls and put one out 70 pulls and the other out 100. We trolled down below the docks and when I made a turn to go back up lake, my inside rod started bouncing. Eileen netted a 14-inch kokanee that had hit this set up without any bait!
I got this kokanee on gear given to me by two Tri-Cities anglers, and it hit without any bait!