I had high hopes and expectations and was full of the excitement of getting up early and going fishing. I guess that’s a good sign as I get older that fishing still holds that special appeal.

JoAnn, I, and our dogs headed out to Lake Stevens and had the boat in the water and fishing by 6am. We were greeted with a fiery red sunrise, calm waters, and just a few boats on the water.

I decided to start us off on the southwest end of the lake and initially ran two leaded lines and two downrigger rods. We used standard kokanee gear and a mix of terminal gear with corn. Within a few minutes the leaded line rods were getting bit and it turned out the fish were perch, not kokanee.

Meanwhile the fish finder was lighting up with marks from 35 to 80 feet deep. Shortly thereafter my deep rod released at sixty feet and I had a nice kok on the other end of the line – until it came off in the last 20 feet to the boat. Nonetheless, this fish and the two perch made me decide to put away the leaded lines and run stacker rods with Double D dodgers.

7:15am the starboard deep rod goes off at 51 feet deep. It’s coming up fast so I play the fish and JoAnn skillfully nets a nice 14 ½” kokanee. That’s more like it! The fish was caught on an Arctic Fox Trolling Fly kokanee series, the treble hook had this fish securely attached. He wasn’t going anywhere!

And that was it.

The rest of the morning until we called it at 10am was a boat ride. Not one bite despite lots of fish on the fish finder. I switched up gear but just could not find a set up the fish were interested in. That’s kokanee fishing. It can be lights out one day and lock jaw the next. Anyway, back home to spread mulch in the backyard and strategize my next fishing trip.

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