Fishing Report 6-19-05

I had planned a trip with some of our friends for a kokanee trip at Paulina Lake on Father's day. With some clearing weather, we were hoping that the kokes would be cooperating. I had been out on the preceding Fri. with 20 m.p.h. winds, blowing snow and temps that never got out of the 30's. I took Gary Miralles from Shasta Tackle Co. and Mike Abbott the Allsports salesman for Central Oregon to East Lake for some kokanee fishing and a test drive of the new Strike Vision camera from Walker Downriggers. It was double tough fishing with only two kokes landed before we got off the lake at noon. The camera is pretty cool to watch as kokanee appeared and disappeared that day. We saw a few strike the lures but they were definitely off the bite.

We awoke Sunday morning to clearing skies and dying winds from the East as the high pressure began to set up. We didn't get there as early as I like but you have to compromise with the women occasionally. We hit the water around 7:00 a.m. and took a shot at the browns for the first 20 minutes. I made two passes around the bay in front of the resort with nothing to show for it. We decided that we should get after the kokanee and headed up the West side of the lake on a scouting run. I was marking kokes at 30-50 in water of 90-130 feet and there were plenty there.

We started out with two rods working a 20 foot spread on one rigger at 30 and 50 feet. The other rigger worked from 20 to 40 feet with one rod. Since I was working with my new Walker Downriggers, three rods was all I wanted to work this morning. I'm still getting used to them. We had our best success with Shasta Tackle Slingblades in nickel/red and nickle/pink trailing watermelon and copcar kokanee killer's by Pro-Troll in the 2.0 size. I was also using a mini-hootchie in hot pink behind a Goldstar dodger in watermelon. Everything was working well with a slight advantage to the kokanee killer's.

By the first bathroom break for the gals at around 10:00 a.m., we had boated 11 kokanee and lost a couple more. We got back on the water around 10:30 and went for round two. By 11:30 we were limited out for the 4 of us who were fishing. My wife was content to watch and cheer our friends and their son on.

After cleaning the kokes and eating lunch we were back on the road home around 1:00. I actually got home in time to see the conclusion of the U.S. Open. Unfortunately Tiger couldn't get the job done and Michael Campbell hung on to take the title.

Sreamin' Drags, Rick