the kokanee are turning uplake and heading for tributaries to spawn in a few weeks...the only good fishing for them right now is in front of the painted rocks in Stehekin...which is 55 miles uplake with no services for the last 30 miles of that trip, so please don't try and go up there. The lakers are everywhere, but give these few spots a try:
Right off of the tip of Wapato Point, go out about 200 yards and start fishing...if you have a depth finder then you will see where the lake drops from about 130' to over 300'...fish the ledge.
Out in front of Sunnybank (look at a map) and you fill find "Mack Bar"...it is a small island where the macks tend to hang out.
the trench...straight out from Mill Bay is a trench that runs kind of northeast to southwest (blue roofed condo's on the south shore to the red roof condos on the north shore)...I think it's about 160' deep...
How to fish for them: since you only have 200' of downrigger cable your best bet will be to jig for them as they are right on the bottom. Get some 1 ounce jig heads, put on a white Powerbait Grub and a piece of pikeminnow (you can catch these off of just about any dock using a spoon or spinners) or a piece of herring and drop to the bottom with your rod tip at water level, once on the bottom jig up and let it drop quickly till it hits bottom, then do it again...you can jig just about anywhere on the lake but the above spots, especially Mack Bar and off of Wapato Point are really good.
If you must troll...then head to the trench (mentioned above) and troll a Mack's Lure Wiggle Bill Hootchie rig (salmon size), behind a Macks DD dodger (9" version) and soak it good with Pro-Cure bloody tuna super gel. Or troll a long spoon such as a 6" coyote spoon in silver and again soak it in the super gel. Others do well trolling an Ace Hi-Fly behind a dodger too...tip it with pikeminnow or herring strip and the super gel.
You can read all about it at Northwestfishingreports.com and look under articles and search for Lake Chelan...someone wrote a detailed article on it all and it's posted there...or a July 2010 copy of Salmon-Trout-Steelheader...
If you just want to catch fish and don't care what kind, then the smallmouth can be found hiding under just about every dock on the lake, pitch jerk baits, suspended baits, and plugs under the docks or drop shot some rubber worms (motor oil color) or some crawdad patterns (there's a lot of crawdads in the lake...just very small in size to them).
Grade
