The Outdoor Line Forum

I don't have a pic to back it up but I've heard some great things from the in-river sockeye fishery!
In fact the bankies were out-producing the boat anglers!
The ol' standard wing bobber and a sand shrimp deployed with standard plunking gear seemed to be the ticket!

Stay tuned, there will be more to come on this surprisingly successful new fishery!

Heard as well that there fish caught Saturday (even a few limits)! With the high flows word is the successful anglers were fishing shallow.

However expect the catches to drop dramatically. The river at Concrete jump up approximately 5 feet to 50,000 CFS this afternoon. Lots of dirty water and logs floating. The river forecast is for the flows to stay above 30,000 CFS for the next 10 days. With any extended warm (seasonal?) weather the river maybe "gone" for the duration of the season. Baker reservoir is essential full at this time.

In addition the tribal fisheries started to day.

Tight lines
Curt

Well...there's some good news

hi curt i was going to gardner bar tuesday to try for sockeye but it sounds like its over with mud and logs coming down are the tribes getting close to their 50 percent is wdfw checking fish tickets one good thing is if theirs logs coming down they wont be able to net that meams big run at trap early i hear 40 fish at trap do you think baker lake will be good around july 15 thanks

Hey FS,
The warm weather will indeed put more water (and mud, and logs and, well, you get the picture...) in the river and the sockeye will be tougher to hook but I will also bet that the high water will suck a bunch of fish into the river and by mid-July, it should be "GO TIME" in Baker Lake!

Incidentially, here are WDFW creel census numbers from the weekend:
Saturday 6//16 Anglers 178 Sockeye 169

Sunday 6//17 Anglers 84 Sockeye 17

Bank anglers did better overall than boat anglers indicating that the sockeye were running shallower than most folks thought.

Does anyone fish for sockeye around the mouth of the Baker River? I was thinking about heading up that way to give it a try one the water comes down. Any advice for a relative newbie wood be greatly appreciated

Hey DD,
This year's sockeye fishery is an open book.
In other words, go check out what's happening on the plunking bars (as opposed to the drinking bars... ) from Mt. Vernon to Burlington and above to Gilligan Creek in the Sedro Woolley area.
The Skagit in the Concrete area (where the Baker River enters the Skagit) is not open for Sockeye retention.

I just got off the phone with Larry Carpenter of Master Marine and he is getting multiple reports of limit fishing for sockeye today. They are being caught fairly shallow and tight to the bank.
Good luck!

Nelly wrote:The ol' standard wing bobber and a sand shrimp deployed with standard plunking gear seemed to be the ticket!

I've never fished that rig before, but I'd sure like to try. I don't suppose anyone has a link to a site, article or diagram of how to rig that?