Quinalt freshwater sockeye!

[bob r]

While fishing our favorite lake last weekend we managed to hook, land and release two sockeyes right up from the salt. We were trolling spoons at 25 and 35 ft.on the downrigger for Dolly Vardens and native cutthroat in this Tribal controlled fishery in 40 to 45 ft. of water, this requires a close eye on sonar and your hand on the crank to pull up that ball quick to avoid stumps and trees. The fish hit on the upper rod, a kokanee special from ugly stick with the smallest abu-garcia c4 reel, one fish was 4lbs.,4ozs., the other 6lbs 3ozs.When they hit it was the freight train runaway, this one wrapped the line around the upper stacker, with braid we had to pull in to shore to untangle braid, spoon, and fish!Treated the second one more aggresivly on retrieve, had Melanie change seats in the canoe while the fight was a ways out so she could get that d*** ball reeled up. Succesful releases, who says you need a bare hook to catch sockeye?The tribe requires immediate release of all salmon caught, but we managed 6 trout and 6 Dollies for the two days, wonderful weather and scenery make this a 5 star weekend. As you can see the salmon were males in the hooknose mode, this didn't keep them from hammering our gibbs spoons.Tight lines to all,Bob R