Chelan "2015"
No one posted a 2015 thread for Chelan yet? The fishing has been really good!
Here's a report I posted this last week fishing with a local guide. We also made a video, up on YouTube:
The word is getting out that kokanee fishing on Lake Chelan is a year round affair. Recent reports have been showing some nice catches. I hooked up with Jeff Witkowski of Darrell and Dad’s Family Guide Service to see what the action is like. Jeff took me and his friend Pepe of Blueberry Hills Restaurant for a day of kokanee action.
Because Jeff wants to promote this fishery for Darrell and Dad's Guide Service I’m with-holding some of the specific details, mainly the locations he is finding the fish.
We started at 8am and fished until 3:30pm, a full day trip. The weather was very tolerable, mid 30s in the AM to low 40s at the end of the day. I hit it perfect as we had calm waters, but fog did descend on Lake Chelan and I never got to see the snowy hilltops this day.
We ran four rods, two on downriggers and two as “outriggers”, off either side of the boat. The outriggers ran medium sized Mack Double D dodgers, and the downrigger rods ran the small Double D dodgers. All rods ran Mack mini hoochies with smile blades, orange or pink being the preferred color. Scented corn rounded out our gear.
The downriggers we used to go deep. We marked and caught kokanee all the way down to 225 feet deep. Most of our fish came at 65-100 feet deep. The outrigger rods we used 5 oz of weight to get down, and the medium Double D dodgers pushed them away from the boat even with the extra weight. These rods were running around 60-70 feet deep.
Our action started immediately and held up pretty well throughout the morning, and slowing down in the afternoon, however, Jeff told me they have been having success throughout the day and mid-morning to the afternoon has been good. It was nice to not have to get up quite so early! I would say all rods generally did well, I didn’t notice a huge difference between the downrigger rods and the outrigger rods. The fish are looking great, averaging 12-15” for us. Nothing smaller than 12”, and most were 14” with a couple 15s. I’ll take that mix any day!
We ended up with 17 fish, and lost 9. Jeff says he has been having some 20 fish days, so it’s been good. We had a bit of prospecting to do to get these fish, but when we found them they were cooperative. If you want to book a trip Jeff has openings and a warm boat (canvas and a heater). So give him a call (509-687-0709) and get in on some winter koks! They have a special running through Feb 15th, $290 for 6 hrs, 2 adults and 2 kids.
http://www.darrellanddads.com/kokaneespecial.pdf
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