We got hit with an early winter snowstorm up here in Leavenworth.  I just barely got the boat cleaned and the cover on before it hit.  Between that and meetings I didn’t get out on the water this week.  I did have a good day on the Icicle River the week before.

I have been watching the coho fishery on the Icicle River develop over the past couple of weeks.  The river went from gin clear and low to high and muddy after we got several days of rain.  I figured that the ideal time to fish the Icicle for coho would be last Monday.  

There had been a few days without rain and the river should be full of fish and settled.  I got there early and, since I had never tried fishing for coho before, I picked a likely looking spot to toss my jig.  I started right next to the handicapped platform on the downstream side.  On my fourth cast—Wham! A fish hit my jig so hard it almost jerked the rod out of my hand.  It churned the water into a froth and, when I was finally able to get it to the bank, I had a heck of a time grabbing it and getting on the bank.  

The coho measured 30 inches and when I filleted it, the meat was a dark red.  What a beauty.  You will want to wait for the recent snow to clear away to give this fishery a try.  I am not sure that the water will come up and get muddy again when the warm weather hits later in the week.  I would get on this right away, as the fish will be turning too dark for keeping pretty soon.  This week’s photo is of the coho I got on the Icicle.

What do you do when the forecast is for a foot of snow?  I fire up the smoker.  I usually do this time of year, no matter what the weather forecast is.  I have stockpiled a good supply of summer run salmon, sockeye, and a whole bunch of triploid rainbow trout.  The holidays are not that far off and my family loves to get some smoked fish.

There are a lot of ways to smoke fish and everyone I know has their own way of doing it.  It can be very simple or very complicated.  It is hard to beat a brine of salt and brown sugar.  I use kosher salt instead of rock salt now and my special twist is to add basil flakes.  After watching me spend 13 hours tending my old tin box smoker, my wife gave me an electric smoker for Christmas.  It is well insulated and even feeds alder biscuits automatically.  I have done hundreds of pounds of fish with this unit and get excellent results.  Also, a favorite for the Holidays is to mix the smoked fish with cream cheese and dill to make a spread on crackers.  Yum!

As I mentioned earlier, I was out of action in terms of fishing much of last week due to Commission meetings.  My brother Rick did get out on the water though, and had some terrific fishing when the weather cooperated.  He and my cousin Greg Preston decided to focus their fishing efforts on Rufus Woods Reservoir, and it turned out to be a great choice.      

They fished for two days on the upper end of Rufus Woods and trolled below both the upper pens and the next set down.  They got lots of triploids from 3 to 6 pounds and also caught some nice walleye while they were at it.  They were trolling either naked Slow Death Hooks baited with nightcrawlers or tandem hooked spinners and crawlers.  One of the things that they learned on this trip was that they could catch fish just as easily, or maybe even better, by trolling upstream.  I have always trolled downstream and since I was catching plenty of fish, I would run to the top of the fishing area after reaching the bottom end.  Now I know I can just turn the boat around and troll back up to the top end.  

I want to try something different next time.  I have had good days pulling plugs on the edge of the Nespelem Bar and that can be a lot of fun.  The method I really want to try on my next visit to Rufus Woods is with my fly rod.  I have caught lots of triploids on flies at the lower end of the big reservoir but haven’t done it by the net pens.  

My plan would be to put the bow mount in anchor mode and cast either sink tip or full sinking lines and let them drop way down, even all the way to the bottom. I will experiment with how fast I strip in the line to see if the fish want it fast or slow.  These triploids are aggressive and I know I can get them with this technique.  One of things I learned when fishing with flies for them in the past is that the pattern better have some twinkle flash or flashabou incorporated into it or the fish will ignore your fly.

With the cold weather in the mornings now I am also going to make some stops and cast some flies at a couple spots on the way down to the pens.  There is a great riffle not far below the Buckley Bar that I know holds fish. There is a small bay with a big basalt island at the top end of it I want to try too.  I have pulled a lot fish out of it in the past.  As cold as it will be in the early mornings now, these will be welcome stops along the way.

Another thing that I want to try very soon is the kokanee fishing on Lake Chelan.  I have had some great trips around this time of year on Chelan.  We often have clear and sunny skies with flat water in the winter.  It’s a great time to be on the water and I am anxious to see how abundant the kokanee are and what size they are going to be this season.

Hope to see you on the water!