June 20 - 28
We spent a week fishing out of Lucerne Valley Marina and got home 5 days back. Fishing was slow. We slept in on the first day after 8 hours of driving from Gunnison, CO but we caught 3 nice salmon north of the pipeline. The next day we caught one salmon, then nothing the third day. The day before we left we did well in Sheep Creek bay. There are salmon in the lake, but perhaps not nearly as many as the in the past. We spoke with a guide who also reported tough fishing. We did not talk with anyone who reported good salmon fishing. Most people we spoke with reported nothing caught except lake trout. We caught at least one lake trout each day but they don't count in our books. We practice catch and release on lake trout but it is surprising how many of the lake trout we hook suffer fatal injuries in the catching.
We will be going back to FG in a week or so and will be camping in our boat in a slip at Lucerne. We don't expect to catch many more salmon than we can eat but we'll enjoy the trip and who knows, we might get really lucky. We will hit all the named spots, just as we did earlier, and we'll have a good time even with slow fishing. If you are the type to be bitterly disappointed when salmon fishing is slow, I'd suggest avoiding FG and traveling elsewhere. Can't say where that might be. As a former business type I would love to see Kokanee tackle sales trends for dodger and lure companies. My guess is that some owners are wishing they had taken the too-small-offer to buy their business 5 years ago.
For those who give FG a try we did best on pink and orange, with a couple of fish on blue just after dawn. Our new fishing thermometer showed an 8 degree drop in temp between 40 and 45 feet, and we caught fish between 35 and 55, with the sweet spot between 43 and 47. Best of luck.
I've been out 3 times with one trip to the Gorge yielding nothing in those trips. My only Gorge trip this season I couldn't even buy a bite. HAPPY JULY 4 
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