First Attempt Fishing Sockeye at Baker Lake

It seems to me that saltwater fishermen live by the tides, and freshwater fishermen live by the clock. Sockeye salmon are most likely to bite between 5 and 7 a.m. We arrived at Baker Lake at 7:00, were in the water by 7:30, and were fishing by 8:00. It’s really hard to get to Baker Lake by 5:00 unless you’re camping. There were maybe two dozen boats already there, and most of them still fished for another few hours. It seems it was slow for everyone today, although this year the sockeye runs were fantastic and we’ve had good reports of success last weekend. We happened to spot Brianna Bruce, the fishing guide we had hired back in May to teach us kokanee fishing in Lake Stevens. They hadn’t caught anything yet, but she and her client eventually caught two.

We carefully followed all the advice we were given. We ran the kicker motor at idle speed and put out the drift socks to get down to 0.8 mph trolling speed. We set up four rods all at different depths from 20 feet to 50 feet, using coonstripe shrimp for bait. We used precisely the tackle that was recommended, which is what I spent much of day yesterday tying and organizing. We were pretty confident we’d come home with something, but alas our lines remained silent. It was a bit demoralizing actually.

The good news is that the scenery was just stunning. If you’ve never been boating on Baker Lake, I’d add that to your bucket list. After ten trips in row on Puget Sound, this mountain lake in the early morning felt smooth as silk. It was an absolute joy to drive on. When we first put in there was a thin layer of fog frosting the water. The color was a deep blueish green, and Mount Baker towered over it all. There’s no structures to speak of other than a few campgrounds; all the surrounding hills are thickly wooded. Even in high summer the number of boats doesn’t feel like too many; it’s not overwhelming like Lake Stevens. It’s quite pristine compared to any other place we’ve boated so far. After a couple of hours we gave up, pulled our lines in, and took a spin around the nine-mile long lake. We had been fishing at the very north end, and we went all the way to the dam at the south end and back.

The saddest part of any good boating trip is when you have to put the boat away, especially when your fish kill bag is empty. However, it was still a day well spent, and I think the experience was good for us. Of all the things we’ve thought of to improve, the most obvious one is to get there even earlier. We’ll have to figure out how to make that happen. In the meantime we’ll confer with the fishing gurus and try to figure out what else we can dial in. Maybe I’m just too impatient for trolling, but I’d love to smoke at least one sockeye before summer’s end.