Baker Lake Sockeye

With opening of sockeye at Baker Lake for the first time ever, all of us have been wondering how it would be. We have had a number of individuals in the shop today that had participated in the fishery both yesterday and this morning. Though the fishing was far from a barn burner the lake did produce a few sockeye. Most of those we spoke with that did catch fish found them at around 40 feet and just trolled around until they found fish on the sounder, them fished at that depth and tried to stay with the schools of fish. The typical Lake Washington sockeye set-ups worked just as well here.

This fishery will remain open until further notice. More than 10,000 sockeye have returned to the Baker system this season surpassing the 6,300 escapement goals that are needed for both natural and hatchery production needs.

For those of you that have not fished for sockeye before, the tackle is relatively simple. Most anglers fish an 0 or 1 sized dodger in chrome, hammered chrome or chrome with silver scalelite finish and follow that with a single red or black 1/0 -3/0 hook or double 1/0 & 2/0 or 2/0 or 3/0 double hook leader (hooks are spaced almost touching each other in a back to back fashion) on a 20-25 pound leader. This is fished with a leader length of 1 - 1 1/2 x length of the dodger. Fish slowly as that the dodger swims in a side to side fashion. Some fishermen also fish with U-20 or X 9 Flatfish in Chrome, Gold, Chrome w/red dots, Coho (Silver Blue Scale) and Fluorescent Red colors. Small mini squid in pink colors will also produce fish at times.

Stop by and we'll be glad to give you a run down on this fishery.