Happy Turkey Day to everyone. This is a very different holiday for us. No big family gathering for the first time in my life. I sure miss seeing my daughter and other family members. I hope you enjoy a safe one. The real excitement this week has been the regular visits of a bear. It keeps trying to steal my neighbor’s chickens. It had some early success so it keeps coming back.

While fishing on Rufus Woods last summer with James Lebow and my niece Ellie Coen, we spotted a small black bear on the shore opposite the net pens. We were able to watch the animal cross a slope and then climb out of sight. This was particularly memorable as neither James nor Ellie had ever seen a bear in the wild.

My wife Eileen and I have spent quite a bit of time on the Colville Reservation and have seen many black bears while on fishing trips on the San Poil River. One time, while fishing on Omak Lake, I spotted six different bears from the boat. We also watched a large female feeding on a deer carcass on Omak Lake and the next year watched its yearling cub at the site of the same carcass.

Last Monday Eileen and I got to see another bear. It was a small cinnamon that walked around our house, then over to the neighbors. They watched it go into their chicken pen, take one of their chickens and then climb up a nearby pine tree to eat it. It was a reminder that bears are still out and to avoid encounters with them we need to keep our pet foods indoors, take down the bird feeders and put our garbage out just before it’s picked up.

This young cinnamon colored bear kept raiding my neighbor’s chicken coop. The bear would come into his pen, grab a bird, and then come over and eat it under the cedar tree in my front yard. My neighbor did add some more lumber to the outside of the coop to try to make it more secure. The bear kept coming back, but it couldn’t get the chickens.

He called the WDFW and Eric Boyd from enforcement came out last Saturday and placed a barrel trap near the coop. On Sunday, my other neighbor called to warn us that the bear was just outside our house. Sure enough, we looked out the window and it was right there just outside the living room window. Then it headed for the coop.

I grabbed my camera, and my neighbor and I watched the bear attempt to get inside, even climbing almost onto the roof. It couldn’t get in and eventually walked across the street and down the road. We’re all hoping the bear will take the bait and trip the trap and can be removed. We don’t want it killed. Please take precautions so you don’t attract a bear to your home and cause it to be eliminated. Eric Boyd reminded me that if people don’t take proper precautions and continuously attract bears, they can be cited.

Anglers in this region are wild about kokanee. This species attracts a terrific amount of attention. They pursue kokanee pretty much year-round on Lake Chelan. The promise of really big kokanee on Lake Roosevelt has them trolling around in conditions that most people would consider just too severe to even think of venturing outdoors. The fact that we often have sunny skies in the wintertime is one of the reasons that boaters will launch and run around chasing what they will know to be fish of just 10 or 11 inches long.

It is not unusual to see more than a few boats on Lake Roosevelt when temperatures are in single digits. They figure it’s worth it if they can get a kokanee that could weigh 3 pounds. Kokanee anglers will travel great distances to try their luck. In our area they may not have to travel far to find kokanee. There have been attempts to establish kokanee fisheries in lakes like Wapato, near Lake Chelan, and more recently in Fish Lake, near Lake Wenatchee. Keep your fingers crossed. We’ll know if kokanee plants on Fish Lake will pan out in a few years. Wouldn’t that be great!

I have spoken a bit about how I approach fishing for kokanee on Lake Chelan this time of year. How I start at the State Park and head up above the Yacht Club and expect to find fish at 100 feet to 130 feet deep. Kokabow Fishing Tackle is my favorite gear to use, and I tend to try bright colored blades on bright days and darker patterned blades on overcast days. My favorite colors in both spinners and squids on Chelan is orange.

I often take two tubs of white shoe peg corn with me when kokanee fishing. One is just plain but salted and doused with Graybill’s Guide Formula in the Kokanee or Craw-Anise flavor. The other tub also contains white shoe peg corn that has been stained a deep pink. I use the Wizard brand Kokanee Killer Korn Dye and also add the Graybill’s to this tub as well.

I try to keep my speed at 1.3 to 1.5 and will crank it up to 1.7 when looking for schools of kokanee. Many anglers will “stack” when hunting for kokanee. That means they will put two rods on each rigger. Separating the lines by 10 to twenty feet. It can be an effective way to find depths and what colors the fish are preferring that day. Once that is figured out, they will run just one rod per rigger.

I have also found that the two rods I run out the back on lead balls produce their share of the fish I get during the day. I will usually put a 4 ounce sinker, so it slides, and put it out 75 to 100 feet on the line counter. I tried fixing my lead to the line, so it wouldn’t slide, and I got more tangles. Remember to let these out very slowly. If you go too fast the blade will get above the lead and wrap up your rig. That can waste a lot of time.

I will be watching the weather closely. I am extremely eager to get out on Lake Chelan to chase some kokanee!