Return to Lake Billy Chinook

[oldranger]

Back to Billy today! Beautiful day for a few hours. Early on managed a triple hookup on two rods! I noticed the rod that I was flatlining was bouncing so I pulled in a 10 inch koke. then I pulled up the line attached to a downrigger and rather than reel it in I just let it rise up and added a few jerks as I did so and wham I got a hit--much bigger than a 10 inch koke. Thought it must be a 15 or 16 inch bull trout. When I got it to the boat it turned out to be a 10 inch koke and a 12-13 inch rainbow! The rainbow shook off but I landed the koke. After that I focused on bull trout. Several hits popped the down rigger but brought only 2 little guys to the boat--15" and 20" or so. It got windy about 1 so I tried wind trolling for kokes then started jigging. Decided jigging for 10 inch kokes was much more fun than trolling when you can hardly tell you have a fish on so ended up filling the limit plus a few for fun by jigging whenever I found a concentration of fish. Oh yeah though small they were tasty on the barbecue.

Mt jeff.jpg

[Jason]

That's a nice view!

[oldranger]

Yeah my jaw always drops when I come around the corner and there is Mt. Jefferson

[Wandering Daisy]

I am surprised there is no snow? Is the lake at a low elevation?

[oldranger]

2200 feet, there actually are a few patches left on steep n. slopes, probably a little more at the extreme w. end. Bend at 3600 feet is about 75% snow free. Solid snow w. of Bend at about 4000 feet except on open s. exposure. complete snow coverage everywhere at 5,000 feet.