Hot weather has meant early starts to get on the water before the temperature gauge hits over 90 degrees. Anglers are still chasing sockeye on Lake Wenatchee and Chinook in the Brewster Pool. The heat even got me out for a night fishing adventure on Banks Lake.

I got a call from my old friend and fishing buddy Brian Neilson. He had a scheme and wanted to know if I would go along. He had done some reading about night fishing for walleye and wanted to try this on Banks Lake. He lives within a few miles of Potholes Reservoir, but the daytime temperatures had kept him off the water. His friend Mike Wren was willing to go along so we launched Brian’s boat at Northrup at around 7:30 last Tuesday evening. Ideally we would be going during the full moon, but the weather was for a warm and calm evening just a few days after it was full.

We tried an area on the east side of Steamboat Rock, just to get our gear organized, and as the sun set and it grew darker we moved around to the west side of the big promontory. We were all wearing head lamps and Brian had some glow sticks to clip on our rod tips so we could see bites. We got some, too, but didn’t land anything until we tried the underwater hump off Steamboat, toward Barker. We had a pretty good bite for a while and landed three walleye and a big smallmouth.

We will go again when we have a really full moon. We all agreed that a much brighter night would help the fishing and visibility. It is kind of spooky running around in the dark, even though all of us are very familiar with Banks Lake. It really helped having the “tracks” to follow on the fish finder. This week’s photo is of Brian Nielson holding Mike Wren’s first fish of the evening.

I hauled my boat down from the dock at Rollie Schmitten’s on Lake Wenatchee to take it to my home in Leavenworth last Wednesday, with the help of my good friend Jim Passage. He lives near Plain and last year he picked me up in his Corvette and let me feel the “Gs” when he stepped on the gas. Jim is an expert sockeye fisherman on Lake Wenatchee. He treats many of his friends and family to days of fishing with him during the season. I have had the pleasure of fishing with him a time or two. This was the best season I have ever had on the lake. With a four-fish limit I had my freezer full to overflowing. Also, I was able to take lots of my friends and family out and we experienced terrific fishing. The quality of the fish is still good, and the season isn’t over, but I need to move on to some other fisheries. I have already had some great evenings on the upper Icicle fly fishing for small trout, and I want to do some more walleye and bass fishing. There are a couple more lakes and streams on my list and summertime is getting short!

Since I moved my boat down from Lake Wenatchee last week I am considering what to do next. From what I hear, it sounds like a trip to Brewster to do some king fishing would be a good idea. I have seen some photos of salmon fillets taken from fish here very recently and the quality of the Chinook is holding up very well. I also took a look at the results from the annual Brewster King Salmon Derby and there was a very high number of big fish taken this year. The top ten fish in the adult division all weighed over 20 pounds, with a 29.10-pound king topping the list. I was pleased to see the name of Katlynn Gibbons at the top of the youth division list, with a fish that weighed 26.10 pounds. Maybe this shouldn’t be a surprise, as her Dad is Jerrod Gibbons, a long-time guide in the area. Another king fishery that I want to try right now is for Lake Chelan salmon. Fishing can be very good in the evenings, and with the high temperatures during the day this has a lot of appeal.

I know some folks who were fishing in the evening on Lake Chelan last summer that had great success. My plan is to launch at Mill Bay and run over to Party Point and start trolling down lake. What I will be pulling behind the boat is a size 0 chrome dodger, with a 30-inch leader, tied with two hooks for a herring bait. I will most likely put one bait down to 70 feet and another down to 90 feet on the downriggers. I may even put a couple of rods out on 12-ounce lead balls at different depths. I will put them 50 to 100 feet behind the downrigger weights, so I can bring my baits up or down in time to put them in front of likely looking marks on my Garmin fish finder.

A couple of years ago I tried this method above the State Park on an August evening. Fishing with my brother in law Tom Verschueren, we got a small king. I think this would be a fun way to spend an evening. We will bring our wives along and have a picnic on the boat.

I also want to take my niece Ellie and her friend Kellen fly fishing on the upper Icicle. Although the fish are small, you can learn a lot about fly fishing from them. Not so much casting for distance but learning how get a good drift in the current, reading water and reacting to a hit, when you get one. Much of what you do trying for the little trout translates into fishing for bigger trout on bigger water. Plus, it’s a great way to beat the heat on a hot summer day.