A day at the ‘office’

Curt Kraemer pointed toward his 16-foot fishing machine and said, “Welcome to my new office!”

The aluminum Lund Alaskan was moored alongside the floating pier at the state Department of Fish and Wildlife launch in downtown Lake Stevens a couple of weeks ago, ready to take the two of us out for a morning of kokanee fishing on the big lake.

“Sure beats your previous desk chair, doesn’t it?” I said.

Kraemer’s last official office was at the WDFW’s Mill Creek facility, where he was a longtime fisheries biologist and fish manager. Arguably the most visible “fish and game” employee in the area for years, at least among recreational fishermen here, Kraemer – with his blunt, give-‘em-the-truth-even-if-they-don’t-want-to-hear-it manner – made a lot of friends and more than a few disgruntled adversaries in his time at the helm of very high profile steelhead and salmon programs. But at least two things even his detractors couldn’t argue – his love of, and care for, the resource, and the fact that he was among the top anadromous fish biologists on the West Coast.

He retired more than a year ago, bought himself the boat and a 40-hp, four-cycle outboard as a retirement gift, and set out happily to – what else? – fish. And to put in some serious time as a sport fishing advocate.

Even though Kraemer downplays it, the angling community around north Puget Sound should be aware they owe him a debt of gratitude for voluntarily becoming an activist for recreational fisheries in the area. On his own time, and at no little personal expense, he has been attending, and testifying on behalf of recreationists, at the North of Falcon salmon season-setting process, and at other influential meetings. With his expertise and knowledge of how the political system works, Kraemer is a formidable force for the traditional sportsman here.

He and wife Sue still live in Marysville, and just finished putting the last of their three children through college – this one the youngest son, with a degree in recreation from the University of Idaho. Sue still works for the department, as a creel checker at the Port of Everett ramp and other places, depending on the season. Curt fly fishes a lot – even for lingcod and chases salmon, searun cutts, steelhead, sturgeon, and other local species, and hunts waterfowl with a couple of newish Labrador buds.

Even though Kraemer and I did most of our business over the years on the phone, I consider him a good friend and was looking forward both to swapping a few stories and to learning a new, to me, fishery.

We had a gorgeous, sunny morning, with almost no ski traffic on the lake, and we headed out toward the circle of buoys around the aerator in the center of the lake. The device is designed to move oxygen-depleted water from the bottom layer of the 150-foot deep lake upward, and oxygenated water from the top layer downward, thus preventing, at least to a degree, the growth of algae during the summer and fall months.

Or something like that.

Regardless, the device presents two important points for the sport fisherman on Lake Stevens: One, that preventing algae also prevents fish from tasting “muddy” during warm weather and, two, it has become a handy reference point for those who chase the pelagic (preferring open water) landlocked sockeye salmon known as kokanee.

I mean, you ask someone who fishes the lake, “Where the kokanee biting?” and the guy almost always says, “Out around the aerator,” or maybe “Down by the purple pennant.”

So already you’ve got the fishery half figured out.

Kraemer put us out by the aerator, where there were three or four other boats fishing. He cut the 40-horse to a minimum and, a slow troll being crucial to this fishery, tossed a fabric drag device, on a rope yoke, over the stern. A small trolling motor would accomplish the same thing, of course, but Kraemer uses his boat for a myriad of outdoor pursuits, and likes to keep it simple.

He rigged two very light trout spinning rods/reels with a small Sep’s dodger in half chrome, half brass and, about two feet behind that, a Wedding Ring spinner. The rod configuration is important, Kraemer said. Because kokanee tend to be soft-mouthed and must be played delicately, a relatively long, soft-action rod will put more fish in the boat. For the same reason, a long-handled landing net is also a critical piece of kokanee equipment.

The spinners he puts together himself, from components, and ties them with a two-hook setup. These had red beads. “Red,” he said, “early in the season and shallow, and later in the season, deeper, maybe green beads.”

And because the two-hook tie tends to make the lure overlong, he drops a bead or two to shorten it. We completed the setup with a kernel of Pautzke’s Fire Corn on each hook, and a squirt of scent, and stripped out about 50 feet of line. Early in the season and shallow like this, Kraemer said, the fish tend to be boat-shy and you need to get your lure a substantial distance away. We clipped the lines to the Scotty downriggers, and dropped them to about 10 feet to start.

Before the downrigger era, Lake Stevens kokanee fishermen used leaded lines, and judged their depth by the “number of colors” they had out. Downriggers make the game a lot simpler, and you can enter the fishery relatively cheaply with one or two of the budget-priced, hand-crank, clip-on models.

Later in the day, we went deeper, down to 30 feet or so at times, but found that – for this day at least – the 15- to 18-foot level was probably the most productive overall. The fish were scattered, Kraemer said, as opposed to being schooled, and we took the majority of our two 10-fish limits from the area generally south of the aerator. If you don’t have a fish-finder, keep an eye on the other boats – they’ll tend to bunch where the fish are, of course.

We tried fishing for a while about halfway between the aerator and the west shoreline, toward Frontier Village, in an area which Kraemer said occasionally seems to put out larger kokanee, but we didn’t score. We also moved south and east toward the “purple pennant” area, the second point south of the WDFW access, but we didn’t do too much business there, either.

Kraemer said there’s no magic to catching Lake Stevens kokanee. Keep moving until you find where the fish are; keep changing depth for the same reason; and be prepared to try different lure colors. Greg’s Custom Fishing Rods, in Lake Stevens, is a good source of current, local information. The phone number there is 425-335-1391. Another source is Bob Ferber at Holiday Market Sports in Burlington, 360-757-4361. Ferber fishes kokanee on a regular basis, is very good at it, and is happy to share with interested fishermen.

Our fish that day ran from 9 or 10 inches up to maybe 13 inches – fat, healthy, deep-red-fleshed fish, but none of the coveted 15- or 16-inchers which have made the fishery such a time-honored local tradition. Kraemer said that, generally, the size of Lake Stevens kokanee are a function of how many are in the lake. The population is about half self-sustaining and half planted, and you can apparently manage for more fish or larger fish, but not always for both.

Kokanee are not chinook. They won’t break tackle or burn thumbs, but they offer a very pleasant summer fishery, from about mid-May through August, with the bonus that there are few freshwater fish available in Washington any better on the table. Like their saltwater brethren, landlocked sockeye make superb eating.

Kraemer says to barbecue the larger ones and smoke the smaller ones, and you’ll be into world-class tucker.