I got to do a lot of fishing in July. I had some really good days fishing for walleye on Banks Lake and I had some other good days fishing for triploids and walleye on Rufus Woods Reservoir. I also got a couple of days of salmon fishing. My freezer space shrunk as I piled in salmon, walleye, and triploids. Last week was mostly spent getting ready for fishing for sockeye on Lake Wenatchee. I am scratching my head trying to figure out where I am going to put all the sockeye I plan to catch!

Monday was an exciting day in my area. Sockeye fishing opened on Lake Wenatchee. There were long lines at the launch at the State Park and every year that we have a sockeye season there are issues. I want to remind those who use this launch to follow the rules posted about parking here. We want to keep a good relationship with park staff who have to deal with the surge in traffic here when we get a sockeye season.

I had been watching the weather forecasts for the lake for days and days. Wouldn’t you know it, the only day with high winds was the opening day. As part of your checklist of things to have on the boat is enough lifejackets for everyone on board. Boaters should also take care when navigating the shallow run up from the launch past the island. The wind will make it difficult to see the large rocks that need to be dodged, even though the lake level is fairly high this year. Lake Wenatchee is beautiful and so are the sockeye as shown off by Rollie and Noah in this week’s photo.

Make sure you have punch cards and licenses for everyone on the boat that is fishing and a pen to record each catch. I want to remind folks that even if you have young people on board that don’t need a license they still need to have a punch card to record their catch. My brother gave me a good idea about punch cards that he learned from his days as a fishing guide. He clips all the punch cards to a clipboard and assigns one person to mark each card as fish are caught. It frees everyone else up to get their gear back in the water instead of digging out their punch cards and recording their catch. I can see how that would really speed things up and actually mean more fish in the boat at the end of the day. I am going to use this method on Lake Wenatchee for sure.

I have tied up a bunch of leaders. Some have two hooks and a hoochie. Some have just two plain hooks and I even have a good number of three-hook rigs tied. I have to remind myself to be sure that I have pinched the barbs on all of my leaders. That is easy to forget when you are busy. Remember, no barbs and no bait on Lake Wenatchee. That is due to the large number of bull trout that are in the lake that are listed as threatened. There are even spring salmon moving through the lake that are listed as endangered. Bull trout and spring salmon must be released without removing them from the water. Be sure to have lots of ice in your cooler. Just like kokanee, sockeye will get soft fast if not kept cold. You want to have the best product for dinner or smoking so take care of them.

One of the easiest ways to prepare salmon, and probably the most favorite of my friends and family that I serve these fish to, is with only plain brown sugar. This is something I learned years ago when salmon fishing with friends up in British Columbia. I put the fish on tin foil, cover the fillet with brown sugar and then put it in the oven or on the grill. Depending on how thick the fillets are, the fish is done in 15 or 20 minutes at 350 degrees in the oven and even less on a hot grill. The brown sugar melts through the fish and adds a bit of sweetness without diluting the flavor of the salmon. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the fish and enjoy! Be careful when removing the fish on the tin foil from the oven or grill. The hot sugar can drip and give you a bad burn. Placing it on a cooking sheet is a good idea to avoid this.

I am one lucky guy that has a good friend that lives on the lake and another that ferried me back to my truck when I moved my boat up to the lake for the sockeye season.

Many people like to “bleed” their fish before putting them in the cooler. They clip or cut a gill and hang them over the side until they stop bleeding. Blood is the first thing that spoils in fish, so this helps keep the fish fresh.

To help reduce the amount of clean up I have to do, I keep a supply of compactor trash bags on the boat. These are heavier duty and thicker than other trash bags. I put my fish in these bags before they go in the cooler. They are large enough to hold several sockeye, and then I don’t have a bloody and slimy cooler to deal with at the end of the day.

I also find the one gallon or two gallon size Ziplock bags very handy. They each can hold a fillet or more and, when sealed properly, won’t let the fillets get wet when they are placed on ice for the trip home.

Look for me on Lake Wenatchee for the next week or so. If you are fishing here or on the Brewster Pool for sockeye--good luck!

I hope you can get out and enjoy it, and I will look for you on the water!