The Fourth of July Holiday weekend may be the biggest one of the year, in terms of the number of families that head out for some fun in the outdoors. A very good number of them are headed in the direction of Eastern Washington. I have my fingers crossed for good weather so folks can enjoy the holiday to its fullest.
I am a fisherman, so I am programmed to be an optimist. Every time I go fishing I expect to catch fish. It doesn’t always happen, but I still look forward to every fishing trip, thinking that it will be a great day. I still have trouble sleeping if I am going fishing in the morning! Okay, since I have admitted to being a hopeless optimist, I look at this year’s return of summer run salmon as encouraging. As of June 26th, the number of summer runs that passed over Bonneville Dam totaled just over 35,000. Fifty percent of the run is expected to have passed over Bonneville by the 28th of June. The forecast for the 2026 season is 41,000, and I am not saying that we should expect to double the number of fish that we are seeing right now, but it sure appears that the number of summer runs could pass the forecast by a good margin. I have been saying that we should see the same type of season this year that we did last year, meaning limited days and only bubble fisheries in certain areas of the upper Columbia. Maybe I am wrong about this. This week’s photo is of the graph of summer run return.
I recently posted a success story about the sockeye returns to the Skagit River and the Baker River. It is really great to hear about the rebound of this run. With the closure of the Columbia River to sockeye fishing this year, you can bet that anglers will be flocking to Baker Lake. I have considered going over there as it is a very scenic place to fish, and the sockeye are reported to be even larger than the ones that we catch at Lake Wenatchee. However, the prospect of trying to even get out on the water and then the crowd on the lake isn’t something I would want to experience. While some fisheries are on the rebound the Columbia River sockeye run is tanking. To date only a little over 46,000 sockeye have passed over Bonneville Dam. I think there is very little hope that this run will approach the forecast of 274,000. Even the hope of a season on Lake Wenatchee is getting doubtful, although it is a separate run.
We spent a morning on Banks Lake fishing for walleye recently and on my way home we took the route through Ephrata so I could check out Sun Lakes Park. The park had been closed due to the fire that burned over 3,000 acres in the area. I am happy to report that the park is open, and everything is operating normally. I saw lots of families enjoying the day. I loved seeing the youngsters zooming around on their bikes to get an ice cream cone or other treat, and there were people out on the docks fishing for rainbow. I told my fishing partner that I would like to go to Park Lake and fish for perch. They are plentiful in this lake and are of a very good size. Fishing should also be good at Deep Lake, which is nearby. It is loaded with rainbow and also has an excellent population of small kokanee. When we were heading to the launch on Banks a boat motioned us over. A woman on board had a hook stuck in her hand and they wanted to cut it out. I told them to use the monofilament trick to remove the hook. Google “remove a hook”. This is a much better solution. If you cut the hooks off, like these anglers were going to do, you still have the barbed end in your hand. My fishing partner has seen me do the monofilament trick and it works!
The Bass Angler Magazine’s Vexus Pro-Am Bass Tournament at the Potholes Reservoir was held recently, bringing top anglers from across the west to local waters. The anglers began their competition at 5 a.m. Friday and competed through Sunday afternoon. “Everything went good,” said Mark Lassagne, CEO and Tournament Director for BAM Tournament Trail. “The weather was nice, it was just altogether a smooth event without any issues.” On the pro side of the tournament, Aaron Ecthernkamp from Moses Lake earned the title of Pro Champion for the weekend to earn the grand prize of the $40,000 Mercury-Powered Vexus 1880 fishing boat. Ecthernkamp caught a total weight of 55.86 lbs. The Co-Champion Amateur angler is Adrian Ghione from Oakdale, Calif., and won the top prize of $4,000. Ghione had a catch totaling 47.47 lbs. As most of you know, bass fishing on Potholes is outstanding. It’s great to see a local angler do so well against some pretty stiff competition!
I like to fly fish and don’t get enough time to do it as often as I would like. I make a trip or two to Rocky Ford in the winter, and I have a friend that treats me to a day at Isaac’s lake for some quality trolling for big rainbow. He also would take me with him on the Methow where we would fly fish for steelhead back in the day. I have also made a few trips on the Yakima, to shoot videos with Johnny Boitano. Since it’s close to home, I will grab my 3 weight and fish for little rainbow on the Icicle. It is fun and a great way to beat the heat in summer. A stream that I try to fish in the early summer is the Teanaway, outside of Cle Elum. I have caught rainbow and cutthroat to 14 or 15 inches, that have come up out of the Yakima in the past. There is a short window to fish this one. You have to wait until the runoff settles down and hit it before it gets too low and warm. I drove over there the other day, and I think I missed it by about a week. It looked good but fish were few and far between.
