Chelan 2014

[eenakoK]

See you all out there. Looking forward to it!

[Mharri333]

Has anyone gotten better reports on the Kokanee at Chelan? I am hoping that it has picked up a bit since my last trip.

[Mharri333]

This was on WA Lakes written by Dave Graybill. Makes me feel a little better.

The “Something Catchy” Kokanee Derby at Lake Chelan was a success, with over 275 fish turned in. There were forty anglers in the derby this year, and they really got the fish. The winning team of Aaron Kelly and Dan Beckwick landed a total weight of 45 pounds of kokanee over two days. They won $750.00 for their effort. The biggest kokanee weighed in the derby was 2 pounds, four ounces. There was a competition between the Eastside and Westside guides and the Eastside guides came out on top. Everyone is excited about next year.

[TrollNFisher]

Had the great opportunity of fishing with Mark AKA Kokanee Slayer of the forum for 3 days at Chelan and 19 inches was biggest caught by Mark, fishing was rough and very tough during the 3 days only one fish on Friday fished from 6am-6pm, Saturday 5am-8pm Gail force winds we thought we were in the bearing sea fished all day but we pulled 18 fish and at times we were the only boat in sight. Sunday morning 5am-1030am we pulled 5 more fish and then drove home. Mark had a great time we will have to hit it again sometime. Chuck, David, and Mike had a great time on the VHF great seeing you Gents again.

TNF

[BonkinKokes]

Those are some trophy kokes. I'm glad you guys were rewarded for all the time spent fishing and rough conditions to boot. Nicely done.

[washingtonlakes]

My body is telling me I’m still on the water but I am, alas, back home. Four days of fishing Lake Chelan and our Kokanee Get Together. What a great weekend it was!

JoAnn and I arrived Friday morning, having gotten up at 2:45 to make the drive and hit the morning bite. As many of you are probably aware, fishing this year has not been as hot as last year. The fish are harder to find, harder to get to bite, and generally (a tad) smaller. More 13-14” fish and less 18-20”monsters, but still plenty of quality 16-18” fish are out there.

Rather than day by day I’ll give a summary of our success.

First off, we fished a lot of different gear, bait, locations, and depths. Standard kokanee type gear in mostly pinks and oranges, with corn, sometimes shrimp, sometimes maggots. We did stay in the lower basin, fishing from Monument down lake. Some days we focused more in the Mill Bay/Monument area, some days more in the Rocky Point/Blue Roof Condos area. By far most boats were concentrated around the Blue Roof Condos.

Weather conditions were for the most part outstanding. Saturday was the day of the “Big Blow” and it was a challenge for sure. We fished until noon that day even with our deep-V and windshield had more than a few waves spray over us. My hat’s off to the open boats that braved Saturday. And the other days? Perfect, just beautiful Lake Chelan in all its glory. I think there’s no finer lake to fish on in the spring.

The fish are definitely up shallow this year first thing in the morning. And drop deep as the day progresses. It was great having so many friends out on the water and getting intel. Rseas texted me he was hitting fish down to 90-110 feet on the downrigger. Early AM fish were at surface to 30 feet deep. More than one person had a fish rip the bait as they were hooking on the clip on the DR.

The fish also seemed to like a bit faster presentation. Last year 1.2mph was the golden ticket, this year 1.4-1.7 was working well.

Our “scores” were a big disappointment from last year, but I’m still overall pleased. We went 3 for 4 Friday, 2 for 4 Saturday, 1 for 1 Sunday (ouch!) and 4 for 5 on Monday. Lots of people I spoke with scratched out 1-3 fish a day, so I guess that makes me average, LOL. As always, there were a few that caught 10-12 fish, hats off to them! We had a 50/50 mix of 13-14 inch and 16-17 inch fish. Beautiful chrome kokanee and I already know how good they taste!

On Saturday we had our Kokanee Get Together. The event couldn’t have been nicer. The wind had calmed down and were had a beautiful day. I am blown away by the incredible turnout to this event! There were over sixty WashingtonLakes members. I met so many new faces – it was hard to keep track. With all the activities going on it was also hard to meet everyone, so my apologies if I didn’t get to visit with you. This was by far our biggest event in the history of the site. We had people that drove over three hundred miles to come specifically to fish and join us at the pot luck. We had tons of delicious food. Rseas and his wife cooked us fish tacos and beef brisket, it was incredible. Thank you so much Randy and Karen for your hard work behind the grill.

After diner we had presentations from our Sponsors, Mack’s Lures Lance Merz, Hevi Beads Reed Swallow, and Fish With Gary Gary Gordon. Not present (sadly) was Wannafishalure Toni. Maybe next time Toni! Following the sponsor presentations they gave away gear. All our Sponsors were incredibly generous and people were blown away with how much free goodies they got. Thank you so much to our Sponsors. Also, thank you to Anton Jones of Darrell and Dad's Family Guide Service for his generous half price fishing trips. Our free raffle and more gifts for the WALakes members was the icing on the cake that ended an amazing event.

My heartfelt thanks go to everyone that came out and made this such a successful event. It’s going to be hard to top it, but I’m willing to try next year!

[kokanee_slayer]

Had the great opportunity of fishing with Mark AKA Kokanee Slayer of the forum for 3 days at Chelan and 19 inches was biggest caught by Mark, fishing was rough and very tough during the 3 days only one fish on Friday fished from 6am-6pm, Saturday 5am-8pm Gail force winds we thought we were in the bearing sea fished all day but we pulled 18 fish and at times we were the only boat in sight. Sunday morning 5am-1030am we pulled 5 more fish and then drove home. Mark had a great time we will have to hit it again sometime. Chuck, David, and Mike had a great time on the VHF great seeing you Gents again.

TNF

I Had a great time as well and thanks for going with!!! Had a lot of fun with our fishing buds and would love to do it again. Yea, it was pretty rough Saturday but was very impressed on how the Hewescraft handled it.

[Mharri333]

My body is telling me I’m still on the water but I am, alas, back home. Four days of fishing Lake Chelan and our Kokanee Get Together. What a great weekend it was!

JoAnn and I arrived Friday morning, having gotten up at 2:45 to make the drive and hit the morning bite. As many of you are probably aware, fishing this year has not been as hot as last year. The fish are harder to find, harder to get to bite, and generally (a tad) smaller. More 13-14” fish and less 18-20”monsters, but still plenty of quality 16-18” fish are out there.

Rather than day by day I’ll give a summary of our success.

First off, we fished a lot of different gear, bait, locations, and depths. Standard kokanee type gear in mostly pinks and oranges, with corn, sometimes shrimp, sometimes maggots. We did stay in the lower basin, fishing from Monument down lake. Some days we focused more in the Mill Bay/Monument area, some days more in the Rocky Point/Blue Roof Condos area. By far most boats were concentrated around the Blue Roof Condos.

Weather conditions were for the most part outstanding. Saturday was the day of the “Big Blow” and it was a challenge for sure. We fished until noon that day even with our deep-V and windshield had more than a few waves spray over us. My hat’s off to the open boats that braved Saturday. And the other days? Perfect, just beautiful Lake Chelan in all its glory. I think there’s no finer lake to fish on in the spring.

The fish are definitely up shallow this year first thing in the morning. And drop deep as the day progresses. It was great having so many friends out on the water and getting intel. Rseas texted me he was hitting fish down to 90-110 feet on the downrigger. Early AM fish were at surface to 30 feet deep. More than one person had a fish rip the bait as they were hooking on the clip on the DR.

The fish also seemed to like a bit faster presentation. Last year 1.2mph was the golden ticket, this year 1.4-1.7 was working well.

Our “scores” were a big disappointment from last year, but I’m still overall pleased. We went 3 for 4 Friday, 2 for 4 Saturday, 1 for 1 Sunday (ouch!) and 4 for 5 on Monday. Lots of people I spoke with scratched out 1-3 fish a day, so I guess that makes me average, LOL. As always, there were a few that caught 10-12 fish, hats off to them! We had a 50/50 mix of 13-14 inch and 16-17 inch fish. Beautiful chrome kokanee and I already know how good they taste!

On Saturday we had our Kokanee Get Together. The event couldn’t have been nicer. The wind had calmed down and were had a beautiful day. I am blown away by the incredible turnout to this event! There were over sixty WashingtonLakes members. I met so many new faces – it was hard to keep track. With all the activities going on it was also hard to meet everyone, so my apologies if I didn’t get to visit with you. This was by far our biggest event in the history of the site. We had people that drove over three hundred miles to come specifically to fish and join us at the pot luck. We had tons of delicious food. Rseas and his wife cooked us fish tacos and beef brisket, it was incredible. Thank you so much Randy and Karen for your hard work behind the grill.

After diner we had presentations from our Sponsors, Mack’s Lures Lance Merz, Hevi Beads Reed Swallow, and Fish With Gary Gary Gordon. Not present (sadly) was Wannafishalure Toni. Maybe next time Toni! Following the sponsor presentations they gave away gear. All our Sponsors were incredibly generous and people were blown away with how much free goodies they got. Thank you so much to our Sponsors. Also, thank you to Anton Jones of Darrell and Dad's Family Guide Service for his generous half price fishing trips. Our free raffle and more gifts for the WALakes members was the icing on the cake that ended an amazing event.

My heartfelt thanks go to everyone that came out and made this such a successful event. It’s going to be hard to top it, but I’m willing to try next year!

Great time Mike! Look forward to the next one. Thanks for all your hard work setting things up.

[downriggeral]

We had a great time too and many thanks to Mike and all who helped make the gathering possible.

[eenakoK]

TNF, KokaneeSlayer - Our boat had a great time on the VHF as well. you guys did very well! Its always good to be around other Kokanee freaks (fishermen)

Take care,

[sthoge]

Planning on going to Chelan next week. I have never been there before, any good info? Really looking forward to this trip.

[downriggeral]

Hi sthoge, I'm no expert on Chelan...it's sure a big place. We went there last week with the Washington Lakes bunch. You can get some info at their web site too. launch at Mill Bay ( nice launch $10) Go across the lake and slightly to the left you will see the Blue roofed condos and lots of boats. Join the fleet and it's all the proverbial "kokanee experiment" from there.

Tight lines - Alan

[washingtonlakes]

If you want to avoid the main fleet an alternate spot would be Monument, which is across from Wapato Point. rseas told me he found good numbers over there our last day fishing Chelan.

[sthoge]

Weekend trip was great. Fishing wasn't so hot on Friday or Saturday, but Sunday we didn't do too bad. Ended up with 7 Kokanee, one rainbow and one Mackinaw. Kokanee were 13 to 15 inches, nice fat dark red meat. I'm going to enjoy eating them as much as I did catching them. Weather was great, nice and warm. Wind did kick up a little in the afternoons. We ended up camping at Chelan State Park and other than the fact that they were rebuilding the boat launch, we really enjoyed it. Definitely plan on going back some time. Just one word of advice, even for the middle of May, make reservations. We normally don't run into campgrounds being full in the middle of May, but Beebe Bridge was full when we got there Thursday night. I think the forecast for nice weather may have brought out more people than normal.

[Mharri333]

My fishing partner and I made a trip to Lake Chelan last weekend. We left on Thursday afternoon after work and began fishing on Friday morning. We got to the Manson ramp and in the water about 4:45ish. We headed across the water to Minneapolis Beach. Last trip this is where we had our early morning hits. Friday it wasn't happening. We weren't marking anything and we weren't getting bites. We swung around and headed to Rocky Point where we started smacking them pretty good. I am trying to remember the breakdown but I think we ended up with about 12 kokanee. Early in the day we were catching them at 45 feet at 1.1 MPH. We hit them on red wedding rings with a little flash attached to the hook. We also caught a few on home made pink hoochies with flash. We fished until about 11 or so then headed over to the Yacht Club area to fish for Macks. We ended up with half a dozen or so.

We were staying at the Apple Inn Motel in Chelan. It was a cancellation from someone else and we were lucky to find anything. I grabbed it as soon as it came open. The parking is a little tight and there aren't too many options for plugging in to recharge your boat but the rooms are clean and fairly cheap. We were able to park in a grassy area to the rear of the motel and run a 100ft extension cord to a little shop back there for power. I am not sure they would have been excited about me running a cord to their shop but I needed power and I didn't ask... I wasn't excited about parking behind the motel for security reasons but it was about the only option. I was glad I put locks on all of the downriggers and on the bench seat storage compartments. No one messed with anything the entire trip and I kept checking on it.

That night we hit the Tin Lilly for a couple of beers and dinner. The food there is very good and after a full day in the sun we were ready for a drink. It is within walking distance of the motel so we didn't have to unhook the boat or worry about driving. The next night we walked two blocks to the Apple Café. The food was excellent and they have a little dive bar on the side which is right up my alley...

Back to fishing, you got me side tracked. Saturday morning we felt like we needed to be at the ramp by 4 to get the most of the early morning low light prime time. We put the boat in and went to Rocky point. We fished hard and had consistent bites. We really wanted to get after some Lake trout on the other side so we pulled up with 16 fish in the box. We tried hard for a 20 fish limit but didn't get it done. We caught a few more Macks then ended the day around 2ish and headed in to clean up and prep for the next day.

Sunday the water was like glass and no boats were on the water. Calm and quiet. We fished Rocky point but the fish were not there. We swung around and headed toward Minneapolis Beach and finally started to get some hits. They were really spread out on Sunday and it took a lot of looking but we finally ended up with 13 fish in the box before going after Macks. I think we ended the trip with right at 41 kokanee and 15 or so lake trout. We had a really good time on the water and barely saw anyone fishing. I would recommend hitting it now if you are able to. The fish weren't hitting earlier in the year but they are hitting now. One thing that was interesting was that I was getting a lot of hits on Peewee hoochies. They don't have flash (yet) but they have a colored spinner blade. I was using a charcoal colored one and a white one that worked very well. I ended up losing the charcoal one to a bigger fish on Sunday. (I change the hooks on it to a pre-tied double set up the night before that failed)I will be replacing it. I may flash it up a bit too...

Kind of a lengthy report but I know several people were looking at Chelan. Fish aren't as big as last year but there are some pretty nice fish in there still. I have now stayed at 4 different places in Manson and Chelan so if you need recommendations let me know.

[chukardave1]

Thanks for the report. What was the biggest Kokes that you were catching? Have a buddy up there and want to make the trip maybe end of next month. If I do make it though we may end up just staying in the river and targeting the sockeye and kings if that action is hot. Would love to tangle with some nice kokes if it is an option.

[Mharri333]

I think the biggest we got was just shy of 18 inches. We tried to stretch it as far as we could... The majority were around 14 inches. All nice and fat. A few bigger here and there but no monsters this trip.

[Bogey]

Nice report! LOL, I'll bet you didn't sleep too well with your boat out there... I need to find out what kind of locks you've got for your DR's, as I'm always nervous about my boat/gear, but more so after my trip to Kettle Falls last week!

My buddy and his wife went up a day earlier than us and called us as we were driving up there; he said there was bad news and bad news; fishing was really crappy AND two guys had their boats stolen 2 nights earlier. This campground is on the river, and the boats were tied up to a dock at campground. It's a small campground with only about 9 - 10 spaces, but has two docks and a boat launch. 2 guys get up in the morning and see their boats are gone - they jump in a truck to drive up and down the river and find one the guys boat trailer off the side of the road just as you exit the parking lot for the launch.

Long story, hopefully shorter, the trailer had a lock on the tongue so it couldn't properly set on the bad guys trailer ball; 1 item recovered. A drive one direction yielded one of the boats (the lesser $$ of the two) hidden well in the grass a few miles from camp - all the gear gone. After some time the victims drove the other way and about 5 miles up river found the other boat, hidden well, but not well enough. It had all the gear from the 1st boat, along with the gear that was already in the nicer boat. No ropes were cut, gear was stacked nice, no damage = someone wanted that boat and gear for themselves or they had a buyer, but it wasn't kids just wrecking crap...

It was pretty ballsy, taking boats from the dock (RIGHT behind the camps) and taking a trailer from the lot... It was one of the few years the little camp had more than 2-3 sites filled and for once I was glad to have neighbors!!

[Mharri333]

Wow, that is terrible. I wonder if you can put an alarm on them. I was thinking something as simple as a motion light would probably scare them off.

[Bogey]

If it wasn't for losing the boat, I'd prefer some kind of trip wire that eliminated future problems..........