Start to Season 8 - Shakedown Cruise

Even though this spring's weather has swung back to winter several times, I managed to finish some large, pre-season projects ahead of schedule and launched the boat on Monday, March 30. With all my gear already onboard, everything running well and nice weather, I decided to take the boat out, rig all my rods and fish at the same time.

The water is still very cold, a little too cold yet for big numbers of coho salmon to be here. But there are still some coho salmon in the area and I managed to catch one and lost a couple other coho. However, there is action for trout. Both lake trout and brown trout and they are in shallow water feeding. I found a stretch of water late in the afternoon that offered pretty decent action for both species and will be partially focused in that direction (for trout) until more coho arrive. The trout all ran about 8-10lbs - good fish - and lake trout fight a lot harder in that very frigid, shallow water than they do in the deeps.

The arrival of coho salmon into our waters will hinge on water temps. Which in turn hinges on not only sunshine and air temps, but also wind regimes that blow water around. It can change quickly and we could have a school of coho arrive overnight.

If you're itching to fish and aren't picky as to whether we catch salmon or trout, we're ready to go for 2015.

-Capt Rick