After a less than stellar Friday at Potholes, Thom and I drove to Deep Lake, Saturday morning. Neither of us had ever been there before or had ever even fished for Kokanee before, so this was quite the adventure. I'd read reports on the place by "Walleye Be Damn", and got a few tips directly from him, so we knew we had to squeeze this into our weekend fishing trip. We cut off Highway 17 at Sunlakes and followed the signs along the windy road through the canyon. What amazing views and perfect weather. At the end of a 2-3 mile paved road, the west end of the lake presented itself. Ideal!

Thom and I each set up our 12' Hi-Lakers and motored out to the middle of the lake. Someone has taken the time to put numbers on the rocky shore, which does mar the natural beauty, but only very slightly, and it really does help to have such reference points. We started fishing at '5' and continued to around '8'. Clusters of fish could regularly be seen between 20' and 60' or more down there, which is always encouraging. Now neither of us have downriggers so we decided to try some 4 oz weights. But once out on the water, I figured if a 3 oz bottom bouncer would work to fish the bottom around 30', it should be able to get me down at least that deep. And being a bottom bouncer, I could motor closer to shore, reading my fish finder, and figure out exactly how deep I was, for the line I had out, by noting when it started 'bouncing'! Sure enough it worked. What really got their attention was a white hootchie, with white beads and a white, with gold patches, smile blade. Wedding rings, other colored beads, pop gear, nothing else got a bite. Even an almost identical setup, with a red and chartreuse bead was ignored. The hook or hooks were tipped with white shoepeg corn soaked in garlic scent. By the time we left, I'd caught 3 kokanee in the 11"-13" size range, releases about the same number of 9" ones, and lost about half a dozen on the way to the boat!

With the scenery, the fishing, the weather and the company, it was a perfect day on the water! We will definitely be back, though this fishery closes the end of September. There's always next year!

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