Cherry Koke at the Gorge 8/24 and 25

[SkunkedAgain]

Had a great trip this last week with my Dad and Brother, we ran down to Manila and fished the Gorge Friday and Saturday. Friday Dad and I hit it and had a really good morning for Koke we ended up with 16 fish and most were nice silver 2 - 3 lb'ers. I did nail one really nice hog of a red one (estimated it at 3 to 4 lbs) that I released as soon as I could, we found that the Koke didn't survive very well so we ended up keeping 3 and 2 we didn't plan on, but when they didn't swim away they got added to the limit. Anyway I also had a great Mac to the boat, but lost it as we tried to net it... Day two on Saturday my brother joined us and we headed out from Buckboard in a crowd of boats, and it was a lot slower for us on Saturday even though all the other boats seemed to be doing really well we ended up with 22 fish but they were mostly males and mostly red so it was tough to get the keepers we were looking for. Didn't catch as many larger fish but did still have a bunch of fun... Got into the rainbows and was a couple short of what we wanted to take home and ran into Gary (WyoGuy) on the way in and he pointed us in the right direction to pick up some nice silvers to almost fill our limit, but we got blown off before we caught the last one.. Thanks Gary and that was a long ride back in white caps, I'm glad my motor didn't quit on me that would have been ugly... Anyway grand total of 38 fish in the two days, 5 mac, 11 bows and 22 Koke... but we had to work hard to catch that many... I lost my new favorite dodger and cotton candy squid and my catching really went down, even though I used the same thing in a smaller size after... Didn't know lead core line got rotten, but I had a nice hit first thing Saturday morning and it took my whole rig... and I was slow the rest of the trip.. Got the fish right on ice this trip and it really made a world of difference in the texture of the meat as I got it ready to smoke it was nice and firm so I can't wait for it to get done... Thanks everyone for the tips and help, it was a great trip... Later J
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