Back to Baker, our first trip to Baker of the year was the result of a bargaining plea with the older kids. They agreed to watch the 5 year old for the day if I took them tubing on Lake Samish when we got home. I know I could have brought him (the 5 year old) along and usually do but with a 2 am scheduled departure and a rainy forecast, the two did not seem that they would amalgamate to be the catalyst for a relaxing day on the water.

Pulling away from the house at exactly 2:00 am we were met by a light mist that intensified to full on rain by the time we turned off of highway 20 onto Baker Lake Road. It was pouring as we arrived at the Panorama Point launch but all was not soggy. As my newly intermittent flashlight and I walked down the ramp to check things out it stopped raining and we were mostly rainless for the rest of the day. On the water and slowly motoring towards the noisy creek area I was looking forward to my boat’s first Baker Lake sockeye of the year (I said I was looking forward to… because my boat mate was somewhere at the bottom of a heap of sleeping bag on the floor of the boat sound asleep).

Metering through the general area of Noisy Creek it didn’t look as though anybody was home so I continued on to the flats and the old Baker Lake lake bed. The meter was lit up with sockeye as I prepped the gear and got to fishing. The day started out with a double in the dark but I chose the wrong fish to play with (remember the heap of sleeping bag) and ended up losing both. From there I had steady action but didn’t put any fish in the boat. Even though there were many sockeye on the meter I was also catching a ton of dolly varden which are protected under the Endangered Species Act so I decided move back out in to the deeper water. Another trip through the Noisy Creek area and another dolly but I did notice that the sleeping bag changed shape so maybe, just maybe our luck was about to change.

I decided to work my way towards the Shannon Creek side of the lake and as I started working the north side of the lake the rigger released popped and it was fish on. In that it was daylight I woke up the sleeping bag and handed her the rod. While still holding the sleeping bag around her waist with her elbows she expertly guided the boat’s first Baker Lake sockeye of the year into the waiting net and then went back to sleep. From that point we were on our game and had consistent action catching some fish, losing some fish and releasing the kokanee, dollies and a small coho until we pulled the plug and headed back to the ramp.

At the business end of things we were running a sockeye fly that I developed a few years ago. On two of our four rods I added a pink Smile Blade and a few pink beads ahead of the fly but we had similar success on both rigs. The sockeye flies were running approximately 8-10 inches behind a “O” size 50/50 dodger. For bait I was using my go to for Baker Lake sockeye, cut up shrimp from Fred’s cured with Pautzke Fire Cure. Our trolling speed varied between .9 and 1.7 mph. To be honest I didn’t pay too much attention to trolling speed just running my boat at idle all day. Most of our action was off of meter marks. I fished meter marks, adjusting the rigs to just above a meter mark when I found them. The most productive depth of the day was 48’ of cable in any depth of water.

Lessons learned, thoughts or general ramblings: The belief is that Baker Lake sockeye go lock jaw as soon as the sun hits the water, don’t give up just because you can now see what you are doing. In our experience there are fish to be had throughout the daylight hours. A couple years ago after a late start we had a triple at 2:00 in the afternoon to finish off our limits and our last fish this last Sunday was hooked and lost at 2:00 in the afternoon. Keep your bait fresh, especially if you’re working over the meter marks with no action. We have run through a meter mark where the fish ignored my offering, marked it in the GPS, changed the bait and run back through the same mark and all rods went bendo. Fish out of the crowds, there are fish to be had. What is better 50 boats running over a couple schools of fish or a solo boat on a single school of fish? Use your GPS, when you find a school of fish save the meter mark and keep working it over until you can’t find it again. The last bit advice is to not laugh at the sleeping bag standing on the deck fighting a fish while it mutters something about getting up at 1:00 in the morning…

All in all it was a great day; we bonked 4 sockeye to almost 9 pounds, hooked six others but lost them including a triple that was the result of repeated passes through a small meter mark. We also caught and released 8-12 dollies to about 3 pounds, a couple kokanee and a 10 or 11” coho. Although the weather was a bit questionable the scenery was still spectacular. We closed out the day pulling the kids around Lake Samish until they were frozen and had a blast. Actually on that note, there are Kokanee jumping all over the place at Lake Samish and some are absolute toads.

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