Whoo-hoo, we made it out on the water! It took the perfect storm but it happened. Karen got herself a new fishing kayak and wanted to break it in, we were invited to visit friends that have a place on Lake Cavanaugh and we actually had a free morning. Perfect storm, fate or just good fortune it worked for me. I needed a morning on the water!

I was up at 4:00 and the gang joined my flurry of activity around 6:00. I know, not an early start but it was a start none the less. Kayak on top of the truck and boat in tow we arrived at the WDFW access around 7:00-7:30. On arrival, there was only one other rig in the parking lot so we took our time launching both the kayak and the boat. After assuring that Karen’s new yak was indeed seaworthy, Brendan and I headed towards the islands while Karen explored the flats with her new yakitty-yak.

Running along the 70 foot line just down from the islands I set up and danced the kokanee-swing while I got to business. I started with 2 stacked lines on one side and 1 line running on the other rigger off the other side of the boat. Well at least that was my plan anyway, I couldn’t get 2 lines in the water let alone three so decided to just run 2 lines. It was wide open pandemonium on my Lund. Between multiple doubles and a 4 year old, things were hopping.

When fishing Cavanaugh I usually run dodgers so that in mind I was running a green headed Dick Night dodger on one side and a Sepps 50/50 on the other. The dodgers were being followed by one of my custom tied kokanee/shrimp flies on one and a hammered brass spinner set up on the other. While I stated using corn and DNA Gel it became apparent that we were going to have a short day on the water if I continued using bait/scent so I scrubbed the gear clean and sent it back to do its magic scentless. Even without bait/scent we had constant action including multiple doubles. All our fish were caught while chasing meter marks between 33’ and 48’. Our trolling speed was generally 1.2-1.4 MPH but to be honest I don’t think that the fish were too picky today. The water temperature was a balmy 61.4 degrees and we were fishing about 15’ below the thermocline. Running our lures nakie we’re able to C&R nonstop for 2 or 3 hours before we put our limits of kokanee and cutthroat on ice. Our gear and fish safely tucked away we went looking for Karen. We quickly caught up with the big orange kayak and were greeted by the sight of her third nice cutt putting on an aerial display.

It turned out that she was having quite a maiden voyage. Although she had three in the yak she had also been doing the C&R thing and was well into the double digits for fish to the boat. She was flat lining a 2 ½” silver and green stick bait rigged with 1 single point hook and running about 60’ behind her yak. We followed her around while she caught the final 2 fish to fill her limit, then we all headed over to our friends cabin for a potty stop, a little social time and bragging.

It was a fantastic few hours on the water with many fish coming out to play. Final count; Karen and her new kayak 15-20 nice cutthroat caught and released (well mostly anyway, keeping her limit of 5), our boat had a mix of about 40 rainbow, cutthroat and kokanee mostly C&R but keeping our limit of 10 fish for the morning. Our big fish was a beautiful gold 17”+ cutthroat and was the icing on an already incredible day.

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