We are in a period of transition right now. Salmon fishing on the upper Columbia is winding down. The same is true for sockeye fishing on Lake Wenatchee. It has been a terrific season all around, and not too far away is the opportunity to do battle with big kings at the Hanford Reach. In the meantime, I am exploring other options, and not giving up completely on late-season salmon fishing.
I got in two more trips to Lake Wenatchee last week. On Thursday I took Jim Moser, who had taken me to Banks Lake for walleye, and we were joined by my friend Bill Hansen. I really wanted to get Bill out, as he had driven all the way up to meet me a couple of weeks ago and we found the lake too rough to fish.
Conditions were much better when we left the dock and headed off to my favorite fishing area. There was a pretty good crowd on the lake that day, due to the good weather forecast. We joined the small fleet and began trolling our dodgers trailed by three-hook rigs. It took a while for the fish to wake up that day. Just as the sun was hitting the water the bite came on. I have had faster fishing, but we still managed to get our limits on board by 7:30. When I filleted the fish I was happy to see they were all still in good shape.

The next day I was back on Lake Wenatchee. I had my buddy James Lebow and brother in-law Tom Verschuren with me. I had been trying to get Tom out sockeye fishing, but he had a busy travel schedule and couldn’t make it earlier. We actually lost a fish while trolling into the area I like to fish, and once again the sockeye were sleeping in. When the sun hit the water the bite came on.

We continued trolling in a line up from West Point to above the Forest Service access, picking up a fish or two on the way. I made a turn up here and headed back down the lake. By the time we reached the dock we left from, we had our three limits.

I had pulled my trailer up with us and dropped it off near the State Park, having decided that this would be my last trip for the Lake Wenatchee sockeye season this year. I was still getting good fillets off the fish but knew they would be getting pale soon. It was a terrific season, fishing 14 days, and getting limits for the boat on almost all of them. This week’s photo is of a calm morning off West Point on Lake Wenatchee.

Taking a break from sockeye fishing on Lake Wenatchee I jumped on an invite to fish Banks Lake for walleye. Jim Moser, who was with us last Monday, August 16th, when we fished Chelan Falls, asked me if I wanted to go on Wednesday of that week. I hadn’t been on Banks for over a month and really wanted to see if we could catch some walleye.
We found the lake about as low as I have seen it during a typical season. We couldn’t even put the boat in at the Million Dollar Mile launch. It was just about dry. We were able to launch at Northrup and since we were up there, decided to fish just below Steamboat Rock. We did land four fish there before we ran down to below Rosebush, where we intended to start in the first place. We trolled bottom bouncers and spinners for quite a while, getting just one bite. We switched to trolling crank baits and had the same lack of success. All the boats we saw were crying the blues. I was surprised that we didn’t see more boats on the water at Banks. It was a beautiful day for fishing—not catching.

I got the opportunity to join some friends at Chelan Falls last Monday. The fishing has slowed down here, but it was definitely worth a try. Kurt Middleton has a new boat that accommodated me, Jim Moser, and Scott Deitrich easily. Kurt ran spinners on all the rods and not long after we had everything set up and running Scott told me that I had a fish on. Sure enough my rod was folded over and I landed a nice king. We fished for a couple more hours without a sniff. One other guide did land two kings fishing just above us. It was a great way to spend a morning on the water.

I wanted to mention that I finally finished editing the video I shot while fishing for sturgeon on Lake Roosevelt with Kevin Witte. We covered a lot of the fishing areas out of Kettle Falls and Kevin shared a lot of details about how to fish for sturgeon up there. You can watch the video by clicking on this link https://youtu.be/RFzpqlLiR40, or you can find it on the Dave Graybill channel on YouTube. I will be fishing with Kevin again when China Bend opens the first of September.

The popular Liberty Lake Access Area in Spokane County will close for construction starting Sept. 7, but lake residents will have opportunities to get their boats out of the water in October. Closing the access area will give contractor crews space to complete renovations including improving the existing boat ramp, sealing, and striping the parking area, installing new signage, a new fishing pier with benches, and replacing the current vault toilets with a new double vault ADA accessible toilet.

Lake residents who would like to leave boats in the water after Sept. 7 will have two designated dates in October to get them out. The access area will be opened especially for boat removal on October 23 and 30. Hours to do this are still being finalized and will be announced and posted later. Liberty Lake is a popular lake for trout, bass, and perch fishing, as well as water sports. It opens for fishing March 1 through October 31. The gate to the access area is closed every year on October 31. Construction will continue after that until approximately early December.

I will still be trying some areas for late season salmon fishing. I have had some great fun through September and into October in our local area. Hope to see you out there!