Last week was another one filled with fishing fun. I made a couple more trips to Lake Wenatchee catching sockeye. I did bring my boat home at the end of the week. It was a great season on Lake Wenatchee, but I need to move onto other things.

Monday, the 17th, was a great day to be on Lake Wenatchee. The sun was shining and the lake was flat calm. Better yet I got to take my good friend Rollie Schmitten sockeye fishing. This was a switch. I have fished with Rollie in his boat for many years. I learned what I know about sockeye fishing on the lake while “deck handing” for him when he took his family and friends out for sockeye. He has saved me a spot on his dock in recent seasons, but we are usually busy taking other people out. We both had a clear day on Monday so off we went.

We started off West Point and dropped our gear in with two downriggers and two rods with 8 ounce lead balls off the back. Three of the rods had a version of the three red hook rig and one had a two-hook Macks Lure sockeye hoochie lure. We put the downriggers at 60 feet and the back rods at 80 feet. At 6:20 the first rod started bouncing. That was the beginning of a busy hour on the boat. By the time the dust cleared, we had seven fish in the cooler and it was only 7:00! As it often does on Lake Wenatchee, the bite died. We ran up to try off Glacier View campground but nothing doing. So we headed for the dock to clean our catch.

I had so much fun fishing with my niece Ellie Coen that I invited her to try the sockeye fishing at Lake Wenatchee. This time I also had my other niece Sophie Graybill along. I had checked the weather and it looked like Tuesday would be a good day to be on the water, so off we went. I was actually surprised at how calm it was when we shoved off from Sockeye Point and headed down to West Point to start our day.

I drilled the two on what to do when we got a fish and they got to put it into practice at 6 a.m. sharp when Sophie landed her first sockeye. Ellie got one in the boat soon after. Things got a little crazy there for a while when we hooked two sockeye at the same time. It was a scramble, but I managed to scoop up both fish. There was quite a tangle with two fish in the net, but we got everything sorted out and got our gear back in the water. We wound up with seven nice sockeye by 8 a.m. and then the bite died. That was okay. We had a terrific morning.

This week’s photo is of the three of us with two of our catch.

My long-time fishing buddy James Lebow had never tried fishing for sockeye at Lake Wenatchee, so I invited him to come on Saturday, the 22nd. He made the early-morning drive from Moses Lake to meet me at Coles Corner at 5 a.m. Following me to the State Park, we dropped my truck and trailer off and then I hopped in with him to get to Rollie Schmitten’s place to jump in the boat.
I was disappointed to see that the wind was blowing pretty hard but we untied and headed down to West Point. I put two rods down on the riggers and two more out the back of the boat. The riggers were set at 60 feet and the lead ball rigs at 80. It didn’t take long for one of the down riggers to go off and James landed a nice sockeye. We battled the wind, having a tough time controlling the speed of the boat and got a couple more. We decided that a breakfast at the Squirrel Tree sounded better than getting bounced around on the lake so he drove down to the State Park, jumped into my truck, and pulled my boat out at the launch. He got a good taste of what sockeye fishing is like on Lake Wenatchee and I put a close on a very fun season.

There are still plenty of sockeye to be caught on Lake Wenatchee. The males should still cut bright red, but some of the females have pretty large eggs and are starting to get a pale color to their meat. This is typical for the sockeye on Lake Wenatchee and is often part of the reason for a generous limit. One of the things that I enjoy doing in a few weeks is to drive up the White River Road and hike into one of the spawning areas. It is quite a sight to see swarms of these sockeye, with their bright red bodies and green heads in the clear water of this small river.

Thanks to Rollie, who provided me a spot on his dock, I was able to take a bunch of people out for sockeye and put smiles on everyone’s faces. Sockeye season is always a special event when it happens on Lake Wenatchee. I hope to see more consistent seasons on the lake in the future.

My buddy James says he is getting some good reports of nice kings being landed below Wanapum Dam off Crab Creek. He showed me some photos on his phone to prove it. That just may be our next adventure. After that I want to get up to Banks Lake to try to add to my stockpile of walleye. I also plan to make a few trips that start at the net pens on Rufus Woods first thing in the morning. After we have our limits of triploids, which usually only takes a couple of hours, I will put the boat in on Banks and do some walleye fishing on the way home. Makes for a great day.

I will be sure to let you know the results of these trips!