The sockeye are here and the pinks are coming, so what’s a poor angler to do?
Well, you can scratch the Lake Wenatchee sockeye fishery for a week at least. State Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Travis Maitland in Leavenworth said low flows and high water temperatures in the Wenatchee River have slowed the movement of sockeye from the Columbia to the lake.
“We have about 11,000 fish in the lake right now (Tuesday), but we need at least 20,000 more to provide for spawning escapement and a recreational fishery,” Maitland said. “There are an estimated 47,000 fish still in the Columbia — plenty of sockeye for a good lake fishery — but they’re coming over Tumwater Dam more slowly than we had anticipated.”
The Lake Wenatchee season had been scheduled to start July 18, but was delayed. Maitland hopes to open the fishery sometime next week — if everything falls into place. Keep an eye on the agency’s website for a season announcement, at www.wdfw.wa.gov/fishing.
“Down around Cashmere the cubic-feet-per-second reading is as low as we’ve ever seen,” Maitland said. “Luckily, there have been no signs of a die-off.”
On this side of the hump, biologist Brett Barkdull in La Conner said a meeting of salmon managers on Monday made an in-season estimate of the Baker Lake sockeye run size, and came up with a number very close to the preseason predictions. That means the status quo for the fishery right now, Barkdull said, no change in limits, season length or other regulations.
Kevin John at Holiday Sports in Burlington said the Baker Lake fishery has generally been pretty good so far, but up and down. There are a lot of sockeye in the lake, and if you hit it on an up day, you can do very well, he said.
Baker Lake is one of those counter-intuitive fisheries, John said, which seem to be better when the sun hits the water rather than during the period before dawn or on overcast days. The fish “seem to want a little sparkle or something,” he said.
The morning bite (after light hits the water) has been best, starting at about 50 feet and going down to 70 feet as the sockeye move deeper during the day and toward the center of the lake. John said the south shore, on the upper end of the lake over the old Baker River channel, has been the most popular area, but that anglers now are starting to fan out.
The standard tackle setup includes a big ring size “0” or Mack’s Double “D” dodger, 12 to 14 inches of heavy leader, and a UV pink or orange mini-squid on a double pink or red, 1/0 or 2/0 hook tie.
The Swift Creek Campground launch remains the favorite. It’s crowded on weekends but not too bad during the week.
The Baker Dam trap numbers as of Sunday were 20,095 sockeye trapped and 15,435 transferred to the lake. And there are fish still coming: last Thursday, 1,424 sockeye were trapped; Friday, 475, Saturday, 288, and Sunday, 508. The highest recent full-season trap count was 28,410 in 2012.
Humpies
The big run of odd-year pink salmon is not quite here, but it’s close. Fishermen are hitting pretty fair numbers of pinks in the San Juan Islands and on the east end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, off Port Angeles and Port Townsend. Kevin John (above) said there also are a few starting to show up in the Skagit River.
State creel samplers at the Port of Everett ramp on Sunday checked 447 anglers — many of them looking for kings in Marine Area 9 — with 46 pinks. At the Fort Casey (Keystone) ramp, 145 anglers on Sunday had 43 pinks; 65 had 71 pinks at the Washington Park ramp in Anacortes; and 59 had 101 pinks at Port Angeles.
Kevin John said beach fishermen are starting to hit humpies at the usual spots on the west side of Whidbey Island: Fort Casey, Bush Point and others, and at West Beach in Deception Pass State Park. John said most beach anglers use pink Buzz Bombs or Rotators, often with a pink or white mini-squid attached.
The state recently built a web feature to help anglers take advantage of this distinctive opportunity, by providing insights into fishing pink salmon in both marine and freshwater areas, listing helpful fishing tips, suggestions on access points from both rivers and coast, and information on where and when the pinks are arriving.
King salmon
The very popular hatchery chinook season in Marine Area 9 started off with flash and sizzle but the hot fishing didn’t last long. On the first two days of the fishery — Thursday and Friday of last week — both Midchannel Bank and Possession Bar produced top numbers of kings, according to Gary Krein, owner/skipper of All Star Charters. But by the weekend, catch rates dropped substantially, and the harvest as of Saturday was 1,253 out of a quota of 2,483 fish.
Krein fished the outer Possession bar on the opener and had his best luck on 4-inch Tomic plugs and green/white spoons.
“Every fish we caught was stuffed with largish herring,” Krein said, “and the key was finding the bait.”
The kings were a little larger than those taken in some previous seasons, Krein said, with many in the high teens.
The state’s Puget Sound recreational salmon manager, Ryan Lothrop, said that by Sunday, anglers had caught roughly two-thirds of the recreational quota and it was unclear (on Wednesday) whether or not the fishery could be extended through this weekend. The season closure will be announced via the agency’s usual press release system and will appear first on the web site www.wdfw.wa.gov.
Tiger trout record
Kelly Flaherty of Priest River, Idaho, seat a state record for the largest tiger trout caught in Washington. The tiger — a sterile brook trout/brown trout cross — weighed 18.49 pounds, measured 32.5 inches, and had a 21.75-inch girth.
The 53-year old Flaherty caught the record fish May 5 while bait fishing with a worm and egg at Bonaparte Lake, near Tonasket in Okanogan County. It beat the old record, caught in Roses Lake, near Chelan in 2012, by 3.45 pounds.
According to Larry Stillwaugh, at state’s Omak Trout Hatchery, the tiger was about the right age to have been released from his facility.
Although not yet listed in the International Game Fish Association’s world record book, Flaherty’s fish would place second, behind a 20-plus pounder caught in the 1970s in Lake Michigan.
For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishining.
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