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Lawn mowed, a million other chores done and everybody awake meant we had a few hours to go fishing. We had not been to Cascade Burgers in Concrete for quite a while and I wanted to check out the Baker River fish trap so decision made, we were headed to Lake Shannon. On the way up the dirt road to the lake we crossed paths with a still dripping wet PSE fish transport truck. Was it possible that they were transporting adult sockeye to Lake Shannon? On arrival at the launch two things stood out, first the lake was higher than we have ever seen it and second there were a lot of trailers in the lot. Maybe the fishing was going to be awesome.

Boat in the water and a quick scan of the lake left me scratching my head. Where were all the boats? We never did figure it out, there very few boats out fishing. Other fisherman or not, I had a plan… After a short run up the lake to my usual starting spot and a quick sonar survey, again I was scratching my head. Earlier I questioned the possibility that they were transporting adult sockeye to Lake Shannon. The answer is yes, when we first shut down and checked the FF there were schooled sockeye on the screen. Interesting factoid but Lake Shannon does not host a sports fishery for sockeye so we motored out of the area or at least until the sockeye were no longer on the FF and got to work. Fishing 4 rods, I set up 3 Skagit Tackle dodgers and a swing blade attractor followed by a variety of custom kokanee lures. We were running wonder bread, 50/50, and a pink splatter dodgers and a green/white swing blade, the green and white swing blade followed be a green mini squid seemed to be the hot ticket. We tried a variety of hook bait but anise-krill scented shoepeg was the preferred appetizer for the day. I was running the gear stacked with a 12’ separation with one ball running at 32’ and the other at 38’.

Trolling a “S” pattern at 1.2-1.4 mph, right off the bat even before I could get all the gear down we were into fish. We fished C & R for an hour or two with multiple doubles and constant action before we had our C & R limit of a mix of kokanee, rainbow, cutthroat and 1 12-13” chinook. Limit caught and our 3 year old patience window closed we decided to go exploring. Gear stowed, exploring the various coves and anything else that looked interesting we ran up the lake to the stay out zone downstream of the Baker Lake dam. It was a beautiful boat ride and a great end to a short but satisfying afternoon on the water. On the way home we stopped by the trap on the Baker River and watched the few sockeye that were in the trap for a while. Fish watching done we headed to Cascade Burgers for yet another delicious meal which we topped off by sharing one of their handmade ice-cream sandwiches. The meal was a tasty end to a great afternoon.

MotoBoat

6/23/2013 10:21:00 AM

As usual, a very well rounded report. What is meant by " no supported sockeye fishery, no retention"? What would you say the range in size of each species caught? The last picture is fabulous! Any gear snagged on underwater stumps?

Rippasher06

6/23/2013 11:55:00 AM

North end of lake has a whole mess of stumps. It is man made which means STUMPS!

Idstud

6/23/2013 12:33:00 PM

Great read as per usual and very much enjoyed. Im glad to see you got some time out on the water.

Bryce

6/23/2013 12:51:00 PM

It just so happens I read an article on the PSE website the other night:
"With the launch of a new, 1,100-ton surface collector on Lake Shannon on Friday (March 1) , fisheries managers are about to conduct their first major test of sockeye propagation in the Baker River’s lower reservoir. Historically, Lake Shannon has seen few sockeye; trout and kokanee are the reservoir’s chief residents. In 2012, however, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife planted 2 million fingerling sockeye in Lake Shannon. The reservoir’s new collector is designed to attract those young sockeye – and sockeye from future plantings – for downstream transport around Lower Baker Dam."
http://pse.com/aboutpse/PseNewsroom/NewsReleases/Pages/PSE-Completes-Second-Fish-Collector.aspx

So I would say yes, they are putting sockeye in Lake Shannon. It's going to be real exciting when they get sockeye fisheries going in both lakes!

Mike Carey

6/23/2013 1:02:00 PM

Yee haa! Another sockeye fishery, cross fingers. Thanks for the report rseas.

HBomb

6/23/2013 3:18:00 PM

650k smolts pulled out of baker to date; 150k out of Shannon.

p.s. Ballard counts are very strong, 23k through 6/19. Check archive for similar YTD count, should be north of 150k this year.

MotoBoat

6/23/2013 8:19:00 PM

HBomb, I too was comparing latest Lake Wa Sockeye totals. With same time, different years. This is one of the top 3 years of the 12 year history! Optimistically thinking, better than 150 is very possible. But going back four years. To determine how many adult fish, were the parents of this years return. Does not support my theory/prediction, very well.

timber bliss

6/24/2013 1:28:00 PM

rseas, alot of those trailer in the parking lot are camper's on other side of lake, i was on the f'.s.c. proj. from start to launch [skanska] it is going to be quite the fishery down the road. believe it or not working 4 10s i never wetted a line, finish up and home lk stevens

rseas

6/25/2013 7:28:00 AM

MotorBoat- Basically Lake Shannon is not open for sockeye fishing and all the fish we caught were 10-13”. We did have what I believe was a larger Dolly hit but it was a drive by. No snagged gear but hey, there’s always next time…

timber-bliss – very interesting, Do you know of any research or position papers? It would be interesting to see what the long term plans are for the Lake Shannon fisheries. In my experience Lake Shannon is a much better fishery than Baker Lake and if they were able to include a sockeye fishery in their management plan the fishing would be off the charts.

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