Family Camping Trip at Chelan State Park

[mwdehaan]

So the family ends up reserving a campsite at Chelan State Park. I think to myself hell yea, I've read a billion reports for that lake from the guides there, let's do this! We're scheduled to camp there for four days and three nights and the forecasts are ever changing as I check for updates everyday a week prior to our reservations. Cloudy, rainy, more clouds, more rain...

My Dad decides to trust me with his boat for the time we stay there so I'm just praying that the weather will be gracious enough to allow us to fish. I've heard stories of Lake Chelan weather acting up and people having to go to safe harbor points and weather it out. I didn't want that to be me so I had a game plan of trying to fish areas near the state park. Big thanks to WashingtonLakes.com members for helping me out on locations to fish.

Friday finally arrives... I pack my gear and head up to meet the family. As always we are late getting out the door but finally get on the road. The drive to Chelan tests me. Clouds... Sun... RAIN?! My mind tries to predict what sort of camping trip this will end up being, wet? cold? cooped up in a tent being bored?

My Dad mentions to me from behind the wheel, see that mountain, Chelan is just past that. As I look ahead I notice an apocalyptic rain cloud threatening my trip. At this point it's a complete toss up. We've passed bright sunshine that pierces through the clouds promising mid 70 degree temperatures and the villainous down pours that scream "this will be the worst camping trip ever!"

As we approach the cloud it's definitely looking bad. The rain starts, pelting our SUV. Then... it's gone. The sun shows itself. Warmth! It brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. Well not the tear part.

We weave through town doing a few errands. Eventually getting within eye sight of the lake and my eyes are glued. It's looking fairly calm, definitely fishable. Of course we thought we'd be able to brave the weather so we left the boat cover at home. Dare I tell the truth and say we forgot it? Okay okay.

We finally pull into the state park. Let me take a moment here to describe how we packed. We decided to caravan two vehicles with the boat in tow. But SOMEONE, I won't name names, you know who you are!, decided the boat was a great place to store everything. So we've got a boat that has no floor room because it's so heavily packed. This was so we could take the dogs. I wept for the boat.

So we play around with ideas of how to unload the gear. Having looked at a map prior to this event we found out it might be quicker to just unload the boat and drive the gear over to the dock near the campsite. The road near the campsite looked to be a short hike and with boxes rivaling the weights of my olympic weight set, I think oh hell no, I'm not going 100 yards with that.

So the boat is backed up to the launch. I clear a room big enough to stand behind the wheel. More gear from the SUV is loaded in the boat. At this point I'm wondering if it'll even float.

I prime the gas line and we unhook the straps. My Dad backs into the water and I fire up the motor. She's purring like a kitten. I signal to my Dad and he backs up another few feet and hits the brakes. The boat budges a few inches. This boat ramp is not a steep one. He tries again, another few feet, another few inches. He pulls forward, I raise the motor, he backs up, I lower the motor, another few inches. After what felt like 5 minutes of skidding the boat off the trailer I'm finally free. The boat had so much weight in the back of it that it was a pain to launch.

By this time the apocalyptic cloud is back. A constant rain ensues. I put on my cap and rain coat and push my thoughts aside. We're here, time to make the best of it.

I pull away from the dock. We had an understanding that I will arrive at the dock with people meeting me there. I take notice of the no wake signs and just slowly cruise through the water, noticing the shore line and the campsites as I go. I see their vehicle disappear behind some trees. I try to place the docks in line with the online map I had seen a few days ago. I then notice that the boat looks barely more then 6" out of the water. Poor boat.

So I pull up within 20 feet of the dock. I swear to myself for no one being there. I notice the road above the campsites is much closer then depicted on the online map. I decide to dock the boat and start unpacking in the pouring rain, stupid cloud.

I'm finally noticed by the family who drove straight to the camp site. My brother in law runs over and gives me a hand. He along with my sister had just finished setting up tents. We unload the boat and I feel I can hear the boat give a sigh of relief to get the weight off her.

Finally carrying gear to the campsite we come around a bend and sure enough the road ends just above our campsite. It would have been about a 50 foot walk with a small hill involved versus a walk from the dock which felt closer to the length of a football field. I mentally kicked myself.

After a few more loads from the dock the parents finally join us. Apparently they couldn't find the campsite but I think they went for hot chocolate to warm them from the rain. Marshmallows too... I just know it.

So bless everybody for getting the tents and gazebo put up so we'd have dry places to put everything. I pack my tent full of my belongings. Apparently you're not supposed to have things touch the sides of the tent, would have been nice to know that a few hours earlier. Funny how I've been camping several times and never knew that.

I end up checking my tent later on and finding a good half gallon of water in the bottom of it. Maybe some seeped through from the sides and maybe some was just from the wet gear. I soak it up with a towel and think to myself how things could be worse. I could have said no to taking the super duper lounge chair to sleep on. I can only imagine the wet mess I'd have been sleeping in.

So the tents are packed, the gear is at the campsite, the guys want to fish. The ladies say they're fine and that we're stupid for going out in this weather. The rain hasn't let up one bit so we're being laughed at for fishing in it without a cover on the boat. We put on a few parkas and head out. Three brave souls.

We pull out from the dock and are feeling good. Set up the poles and downriggers and finally get our lines in the water. I couldn't say how long we fished because I was more focused on keeping my core temperatures up. We might have had a few bites, I know we didn't have any fish to shut up the women with. So we went back and docked up. Taking our wounded prides and pruned hands with us.

The parkas helped a lot but my so called water resistant coat turned out to be more of a sponge then a rain coat. We came back to camp to be greeted with laughs that could be heard a mile away. But bless their hearts, they had hot coffee waiting for us. It's good to be loved.

After removing most of the drenched clothing several of us gathered under the gazebo to try to warm up. My Dad takes over the main role of trying to start fire. Trying to start fire in the rain without the right tools can be testing and he definitely was tested. He had critics the whole time and he was able to keep his mouth shut. Either that or the rain was so loud he couldn't hear us. If that was the case, ignore the previous sentences Dad.

After trying kindling and a few scraps of paper he decides we need more paper. An atlas is sacrificed for the greater good. After going through what seemed like 40 pages to no avail I can only imagine the rain cloud laughing at us. Shortly after the fire starts. The miscommunications came to an end and the fire blazed. Then as if to get one last jab at us the rain stops soon after.

We huddle around the table sipping our coffee and laughing about ourselves. Soon after the evening approaches and the parents take off to drive home. The remaining family shares a smirk because we know what happens when the parents leave.

So the three of us are left at the campsite. Myself, my sister and my brother in law who I'm going to start calling BiL. Well prior to the trip BiL asks me if I know how to play caps. It's a game I'm unfamiliar with so they decided to teach it to me at the trip and this was going to be their chance.

Four hours, 27 opened bottles, and countless bathroom trips between us, BiL finally succumbs to my beginners luck. I win out with a score of 9 to 4. BiL and I sit down to enjoy our last drinks with a few smores. Yum. So my sister went to bed around 11pm after her nightcap of red wine. Then BiL at 2am and myself at 2:20am after our bout. With the parents coming back in the morning I dread what the morning will bring.

I'm awoken with a full bladder around 5am. Suns up, tent is warm. I made a restroom run and on the wake back notice someone sneaking through the camp. Jumping like a ninja from rock to rock. He's got a backpack and two poles tucked inside. I wish I had the vigor to do that right now. He proceeded down the beach to the south and began to set up his gear. I was too tired to watch much beyond that point.

My eyes open a bit after 9am. I've got a mild headache which could have just been due to allergies and I think to myself, hey this isn't bad! I crawl out the tent and join my sister around the table. I try to hydrate myself with pink lemonade adding a couple Excedrin to the mix for the headache. I tell her I should be fine and that it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. After a while I start to feel a bit warm. I mention to her I think I should lay down for a bit.

So I head back to the tent and lay down. Well I hadn't opened up the vents in the tent so it was an oven and the second my head hits the pillow I feel the all too familiar sensation in my mouth of promises to come. I sit back up and take a big breath. Open the tent back up, get some cool air. It's coming, no fighting it and as I'm sure all of us know, get it out of your system, you'll feel better. So after imitating a garden hose spraying pink water I clean myself up and rejoin my sister at the camp.

She asks if I'm feeling better and honestly I feel back to 100%. I start hydrating again and she talks about fixing biscuits and gravy soon. Yum.

So BiL finally wakes up around 11am feeling like crap. Poor guy. We sit around the camp fire and heat up some biscuits. Shortly after we move to the table and enjoy the biscuits and gravy and reminisce about last night.

Not long after the parents show back up. My Dad being eager to fish. My first thought was, hangover + waves = not a fun time. We talked for a while and let the greasy breakfast do it's job. Soon after I was ready to tackle the water.

So one of the adventures was teaching BiL to fish. He'd only caught one fish as a kid and we wanted to get him into fishing if at all possible. So with free fishing weekend we couldn't have timed it better.

We load up the boat and shoot across towards Manson and set up the poles and downriggers. We have two poles running off the sides on the downriggers and BiL sitting upfront with a pole longlined out the back. My Dad is driving and I'm watching poles. We have a few bites and eventually a hookup with my trusty black roostertail. The day had been overcast so I thought, dark with dark. Ended up catching a beautiful kokanee and released it back. I begin letting out line again and am immediately hounded for not keeping the last fish. Apparently it slipped my mind we were going to eat back at the camp. I blame the hang over.

We end up having a few more kokanee take our white corn and decide to call it for a late lunch. The rest of the day was a blur. We had conversations with the parents about last nights activities which resulted in a lot of laughter. Especially when I broke out the camera recording of BiL spontaneously combusting a fire during a break in the middle of the caps game.

So Saturday was coming to a close. We talked about preparing to go out in the Sunday morning and doing some serious fishing, none of this middle of the day stuff. BiL agreed to go out with me so I was thrilled. My Dad wouldn't be back until Sunday afternoon so BiL and I would have the boat to ourselves.

We gave ourselves eight hours to get plenty of sleep and finally woke up at 6:45am. How it took us another 45 minutes to get out on the water I do not know. 7:30 hit and we're on our way again towards Manson.

I drove the boat and taught BiL how to operate the downriggers and poles. After setting everything up I explained to him what a strike would look like and how to free the line from the clip and all that good stuff. So he would watch the poles while I tried not to hit all the driftwood in the lake. The wind seemed to push it all to the areas I wanted to fish. BiL had to clean the lines from the occasional weeds and even reset the downriggers from the line being knocked off at times.

I take a free moment to glance at the downriggers just in time to notice a strike, I call fish on! BiL jumps to the pole, reels it down, gives it a jerk and he's got one. He reels hard, real hard, probably too hard... Because of a miscommunication on my part. The fish is at the boat, I get ready to net it... Then the fishes head gets out of the water and with no resistance it shakes the lure free. Then laughs at us a minute while cruising several inches below the surface before bolting back to the depths.

BiL lets the line back out and sets up the downrigger. I try to do everything I read about in trolling, zig zags, varying speed, doing everything I can do to get BiL into fish. I make a few passes at areas that show fish according to the fish finder. Nothing. A few misses with the fish taking the bait. We get the line out again and I circle wide to line up for the next pass. We'd been fishing 80-120 feet of water and we just went off the shelf which dropped real quick. As I'm turning about we hit 200 feet of water and wham, fish on. BiL jumps up and frees the line. He's reeling hard again and I'm watching him closely trying to give pointers. Finally we see the fish and I prepare the net. BiL gets the fish alongside the boat and I scoop it up. Congrats to BiL!!! Not only did he land his first fish as an adult but he managed to do it all his first time out using the downriggers which he set up. I'm proud of him. Maybe it was a bigger deal to me then him but I'm glad we both enjoyed it.

We pulled up our lines and shot across towards the Monument. Continued to see a lot of action on the fish finder but couldn't make anything bite. We thought we'd fish about another 30 minutes then go get some lunch. With one fish in the cooler we knew we wouldn't starve.

We dropped down the electric motor and I taught BiL how to use a spinning reel. It wasn't long before he had the lure caught in the rocks below. We maneuvered towards shore and were able to free the brand new krocodile my Dad had purchased before the trip.

So trolling back towards the state park we were just working the break in the lake. The water was clear enough to see an aqua colored shelf with some vegetation below. We'd cast out and let our lures settle a little and fall over the decline. I had a lot of followers on an orange arctic fox with a gold spinner. Finally hooking up with a good sized one but it only stayed on for about 5 seconds. Appeared to be a nice kokanee but it was hard to tell at that distance. As we got closer to the dock we called it and shot over the the dock.

BiL brought his fish to the camp and was congratulated. After cleaning it we wrapped it in foil with butter and lemon juice and cooked it up. We overcooked it just a tad but it was still excellent eating. My sister who hates fish even mentioned it being the best she's had so far. I try to get her to try a new species every time I catch something different. She'll come around some day.

Shortly after dinner the parents arrive. We all talk about the stories of BiL's fish. But my Dad is raring to go and do some fishing. With me being in my guiding mode I wanted to try to get them into some fish. I'd had some luck getting Bill into fish and now with another pole in the water maybe we'd have some more.

So we head back out to tackle the lake. We shoot off again over towards Manson. We have the downriggers set and a pole longlined off the back. The only action we see over there is the occasional bite and our lures coming back without corn. Crafty fish. We decide to pull up and head towards the Monument again to see if they're biting today. That morning we'd seen them there but couldn't get them to bite.

Downriggers away, pole out the back. We're running cha cha squidder with a dodger and corn on one, a wedding ring with corn on the other, and my Dad with his odd rig out the back. I believe it was a wedding ring with corn, 2 flashers, and a weight in there. We estimated he was down about 15 feet. Then the downriggers at 35 and 45 if I remember correctly.

We get about even with the campers on the shore and my Dad stands up from his seat up front. His serious face on with a mouthful of sunflower seeds. I try to get him to answer if he has a fish on but he's focused. Finally he says fish on. He begins to reel hard and BiL gets the net. They're both prepared for this one fish and I notice a downrigger pole jolt. I yell fish on. Then the panic happens. Who goes where, what do I do? My Dad eventually calls to BiL and tells him he's got his under control. I'm laughing at this point because the guys were sort of fumbling over each other. BiL breaks his line free, he's got a fish on and under control. My Dad scoops up his fish or pulls it in, I can't tell, but it's in the boat. He proceeds to help BiL land his fish. BiL gets it to the boat, my Dad nets it, 2nd fish in. Then out of no where, my Dad notices another fish about 5-6 feet behind the boat and says "there's another one here!" When I hear that I just start busting up hysterically. The rod behind my view had also apparently gotten a fish and somehow gotten tangled with the line BiL had just reeled in. So with two fish flopping around in the back of the boat my Dad grabs the line and hoists the other fish aboard. Our first triple and what a task it was. Of course my Dad wants to count the fish as two for him because he pulled it in, haha.

Shortly after the triple we calm down and get our lines back out. I noted the fish finder at the time of the first hookup and we were at 150 feet. Must have just hit a school of kokanee perfectly. We'd never had a triple before. We make another pass or two with no luck and finally decide to troll back up the shore to the dock and head in for dinner.

As we get towards the dock my Dad's little weird rig ends up catching another fish, this time a smaller kokanee but good enough to keep. We break everything down and head in with four fish in our cooler.

After cleaning the fish and getting ready to prepare the fish we find out we can't eat them now. The ladies have gone through the trouble of cooking us up something. It turned out to be some pollo a la creme recipe that my sister found online. A chicken with a creme sauce that had mushrooms and I think onions and some other good stuff in there. Then you toast the tortillas over the fire and add the chicken and some rice to it. Delicious. After having that I could understand having the fish wait another day.

After some smores for dessert the parents took off. We knew my Dad would try to come early to get some fishing in on our last day of camping.

Another fun night of drinking and trivia rolled around that resulted in some amazing recorded footage of my sister trying to feed the ducks bread after having a bottle of wine. Priceless.

Alarms are set, time to get shut eye. Morning rolls around and I'm up around 6:45am preparing for my Dad who will be there around 8am to go fishing one last time. Sister is already up and looking like normal. Apparently the 3000 calories of junk food she ate while drinking the bottle of wine completely absolved her of any side effects from the alcohol.

8am is nearing and my sister asks if we're eating breakfast. She tries to throw together some hillbilly recipe she found online. Hashbrowns, sausage, eggs, probably lots of other stuff. Combined in a big bag and then put on a fire and apparently you just flip it every 5 minutes till the bag puffs out. Well it was taking too long so she spread the concoction into shallower pans, pots, whatever to speed up the process. Meanwhile BiL and I are preparing biscuits that just aren't turning out like before.

Suddenly my Dad arrives and I believe he was expecting us to be ready the second he showed up to ready to go fish. Unfortunately it must have taken us another hour to finally get the biscuits and hillbilly breakfast together, get it eaten, and get out to the boat. But just like the other recipe she found online, it was excellent. A little undercooked because I think this is a recipe that takes a long time, but still excellent.

We decide to take everybody on the boat this time. We've got BiL and my sister up front with their two dogs. My Dad and I in the back fishing. We zip across to Manson, fish fish fish. No luck. My Dad's comments finally break me down and I say hell with it and give him his way, big mistake because it ends up working later in the day. Our whole debate was going after lake trout. We run 8 pound down rigger balls because we typically don't fish real deep and our local lakes go up to 60-90 feet mostly and don't have lake trout to go after. So like I said, I give him his way and we sent a ball down to 160 feet. I guess the best I can where-abouts the ball will be because the resistance from the water is sending the ball back at a bit of an angle, so it might only be around 130 feet.

We see a few schools of fish but no bites. We pick up and move back across to the Monument to where we'd seen the schools before. We drop our rigs to 160 and 170 feet. I troll us around 1.4 to 1.7 mph at depths of 140-185 feet.

My Dad's pole drops, fish on. He reels hard and gets his fish alongside the boat long enough for me to scoop it up. His very first lake trout and the first we've ever seen in person! Congrats Dad! It weighed a pound even. So he sends his line back down and I ask him to swap out a rig of mine because apparently we can go after lake trout. He decides he wants to drive a bit so I pull up my line to put on my little custom rig. Little did we know we'd been dragging a fish. I guess we missed the strike. So I'm reeling in what feels to be a log and then the tension goes slack. Lost it but definitely felt some weak head shakes before hand. So with my line up I wanted to swap out anyways.

I couldn't remember what an Ace Hi Fly looked like and I'd know the guides at Chelan were really happy with the results of it. But I honed in on the word fly. I happened to have a wooly bugger in a green sparkly design that I rigged with two beads and a Mack's smile blade in front of it. It looked good, figured it'd be better then what I had on. So I sent it down 151 feet.

So I'm relaxing, watching the poles and then the comments start. "You sure that wasn't a strike?" "Hey we're going to dock and when you reel in you're going to have pulled a fish a mile." "I think you got one on." Well eventually the comments got to me. I reel down and break the line from the clips and reel in. The resistance from having so much line out did fool me for a little but when I saw the lure with the corn I was frustrated that I let them get to me. I'd been watching the poles, I knew what I was doing... But I still checked the other pole as well. Nothing. So both poles checked and sent back down 150 and 160 feet.

Shortly after the people up front in the boat were getting a little warm so we decide to head in. We'd only been after the lake trout for 30 minutes it seemed so it wasn't much of a fair shot. I head over to my Dad's pole and break it down. I comment to my Dad to keep an eye on my pole but it doesn't appear that he hears me because he keeps staring forward. I shrug it off and think whatever. So his pole is broken down, back in the rod holder. I go to my pole, pull it free, reel down, pop it from the clip, and feel resistance. I think for a moment did I release it from the clip or was that something else. I reel down again and give it a good pull. Still resistance but I don't feel anything. I reel down and gently ever so slowly raise the tip upward, head shakes, I feel it, I call fish on! Well my sister didn't want to jinx it so she didn't record it with video. So I'm reeling and reeling in. Pulling this thing up like a salmon because our new rods don't have a whole lot of sensitivity and I can't tell the size of what I've got on the other end. Meanwhile BiL is already in the back with the net and I mention to him it's going to take a while, I'll holler at you. So I'm counting down the feet, finally getting to 80, then 50. Finally around 40 feet we see the bronze shine and it looks to be a decent fish. I tell BiL where to stand and how I'll bring it to him. Finally around 20 feet I can feel the fish is spent, it had a great fight while I was reeling it up. BiL gets to the back of the boat with the net and I bring the fish in range... Nothing... No fish in the net... I'm wondering what gives and I look closer and I see BiL choked all the way up the handle of the net keeping it out of the water. I quickly understand there was a monumental miscommunication, BiL has never netted a fish before! We scream out, just scoop it up!!! Meanwhile I try to manhandle the fish into the net that's being held out of the water. Fortunately it was a deep hookset and BiL finally netted the fish. The miscommunication was from the days before when my Dad made the comment about how you keep the net out of the water and not clarifying the netting out of the water until the last moment. Well this was taken literally and was never properly explained so we had a netter at the back of the boat expecting us to lift the fish out of the water and drop it in the net. Too hilarious.

So after landing my first lake trout that weighed just shy of two pounds we called it. My Dad commented to leave that pole together because he wanted to troll around while we packed up camp.

We dock and the three of us with the dogs in tow head back to the camp to start putting everything together. My Dad pushes back off and goes back after the lake trout that appear to be biting nicely in the later morning/early afternoon.

I pull everything from my tent, break down the tent, shoot the occasional glance at my Dad on the lake. I ask for the binoculars but apparently they're still on the boat. Which was a shame because every time I glanced up it seemed my Dad was trying to release the line from the downrigger clip. The fluorocarbon was giving us issues releasing the fish at those depths so we'll have to try some super braid in the mix or different clips.

I continue to pack up wondering how many dozens of fish my Dad has boated by now with all the action it seems he's having. Finally the last of the gear is packed up to the van. Almost all the gear is inside and I head back down to the camp to grab a couple last things for the boat and head to the dock to meet my Dad.

I meet him at the dock and he goes on to tell me that he kept getting hits but by the time he freed the line from the downrigger the fish was long gone. So apparently that little wooly bugger rig I made up works okay.

I relay a message to eat at a restaurant back to my sister and BiL at the van and then my Dad and I head off to load the boat. We pull into the state park launch and a nice gentleman and his son hold the boat for me while my Dad grabs the trailer. He was interested in the lake trout here and mentioned a method he'd heard of using. Finding the schools of the fish on the fish finder then just jigging for them. I'd never heard of that working but I'd never heard of it not working either. He made a comment about how if a person didn't have a downrigger they could sure try it and I agreed. I showed our catch to him and his son. His son asking a million questions, he was probably around three years old, I tried to answer them the best I could.

Finally my Dad gets the trailer in the water and I run the boat up on the skids. Just glad I didn't drag the prop from the ramp being so shallow. I suppose the boat not being weighted down by hundreds of pounds of camping gear helped.

So my Dad and I in the SUV with boat in tow and my sister and BiL behind us, we were off to grab a burger. We stopped by Apple Cup on our way out of town and I had the best bacon burger I've had in quite some time. Me being a big guy I wouldn't have minded bigger portions but I suppose it's better for me the way it was.

After that it was back on the road heading home. This was by far the best camping trip of my life and easily one of the best times I've had. Memories that I hope will last a life time and hilarious videos should I ever forget.

I hope you all enjoy my story, it was a pleasure to write although towards the end I think I got a bit sloppy, it's past 1am! A few pictures are in the report I posted earlier. Maybe I can add a few more when I wake up.