Cle Elum

Went to Cle Elum this morning and fished from 6:00 until a little after noon.  Never been there before but used a few of my old Wyoming tactics and got a few fish to bite.  The only one that stuck was the very first bite of the day and it ended up being the worth the trip.  I hooked her in about 110 feet of water jigging, it was awesome to set the hook into something solid.  She ended up being 31 inches, Im no good at guessing weight but I would have guessed she weighed 13 lbs.  Could have been more but it was definately my biggest landed out of the kayak.  I had probably 6 or 7 other bites throughout the morning but never got a solid hook into any of them.  If I go again I will spool up with some braid and eliminate the line stretch.  Going to hit lake Washington tomorrow morning and maybe add a perch and cutt to my AOTY list.

Not the best picture since I was trying to get her back into the water quickly.  She looks nice and peacefull in the pick but the fish was all over the place.  Took off like a rocket when I got her back in the water.
 
MW

 Nice Mack!

No doubt, that is a sweet fish. Great work. Mind sharing what you were jigging?

Very nice fish! Great report.

Zee,

I was jigging a 5 inch white grub on a 1/2 oz jig head tipped with a strip of herring.  I knew a lot of people in Wyoming who would target lakers through the ice with white grubs or tubes (kokanee like?) and tip them with sucker meat.  I never caught any big ones but every winter people would pull fish pushing 40 lbs through the ice so I figured it would work here too.  That set up catches burbot too on the same lakes and since they are in Cle Elum too I thought it should work.

MW

Zee,

I was jigging a 5 inch white grub on a 1/2 oz jig head tipped with a strip of herring.  I knew a lot of people in Wyoming who would target lakers through the ice with white grubs or tubes (kokanee like?) and tip them with sucker meat.  I never caught any big ones but every winter people would pull fish pushing 40 lbs through the ice so I figured it would work here too.  That set up catches burbot too on the same lakes and since they are in Cle Elum too I thought it should work.

MW

Right on. Thanks for the intel. Polepole and some of the East WA crew do something similar with glow plastics. Looks like it was a glassy good time on the water!

Nice fish and report MW.  I have been wanting to catch one of them brutes in Oregon for some time now.      I've only caught them at flaming gorge while trolling.   That jigging action looks simple compaired to the trolling that we were doing.

Zee,

I was jigging a 5 inch white grub on a 1/2 oz jig head tipped with a strip of herring.  I knew a lot of people in Wyoming who would target lakers through the ice with white grubs or tubes (kokanee like?) and tip them with sucker meat.  I never caught any big ones but every winter people would pull fish pushing 40 lbs through the ice so I figured it would work here too.  That set up catches burbot too on the same lakes and since they are in Cle Elum too I thought it should work.

MW

Right on. Thanks for the intel. Polepole and some of the East WA crew do something similar with glow plastics. Looks like it was a glassy good time on the water!

Yup.  And yes to the strip of herring for good measure, doused with a scent.

Although I like trolling at Cle Elum.

-Allen