Ok, after flaking out or maybe just being way too busy (or maybe enjoying Alaska, thank you Holland America!) and not submitting a couple reports I figured that I better get back on the bandwagon. If I could rate this trip as a 10, I would rate it as a 12? Yes it was that good and a trip that the “good old days” are based on.

After finally finding a small window where both my fishing buddy Tony and I could get out on the water together we planned to fish Lake Washington coho (his boss was not aware of the plan and he ended up turning in front of us at one point…), oh bother. After driving through a Skagit County monsoon and a quick stop in Marysville to pick up Tony we arrived at the launch in Kenmore just before 5:00 Thursday morning. Being the first rig to launch we were underway in no time and headed down the slough. Hugging the north shore of the Sammamish River as we approached the shoaling at the mouth and the water went from 6-8’ deep to 2.5’. We were still floating so we tilted the motor up and pushed on into the predawn darkness. By plan we arrived in the Kirkland area just as it was getting light enough to see across the water.

Having a variety of gear on board my plan was to run through a few different presentations until we had it dialed in. Although right from the get-go we got into fish we didn’t really get it dialed in until later in the morning. We are probably spoiled but initially we were enjoying consistent fishing for very nice cutthroat to maybe 26”. Any other day it would have been good or even fantastic fishing but we were after coho and we were getting blanked. We started out pulling plugs; my Lake Washington coho go-to but sans coho we started cycling through gear. We ran a variety of gear before settling in with a flasher and hoochie combo. Once dialed in it was hammer time. We had nonstop action, including multiple doubles targeting deeper meter marks. In fact, we were having so much fun when we looked to see what time it was it was already 4:30 and it was time to head in; where did the day go?

As noted we started out pulling plugs, typically some form of green while chasing meter marks. Our initial trolling speed was 1.2-1.6 mph but kicked it up to 1.8-2.0 to trigger the coho bite. We cycled through various presentations including Brad’s Cut Plugs, Old Goat lures and spinners before settling in with flasher and hoochie rigs. I think the combination of the flasher/squid rig and increased speed was the ticket. The color of the day was green. Didn’t matter what type of gear we were running, if it was green it was golden. We typically targeted meter marks but for our boat the deeper meter marks produced better. We did talk to another boat and he was having success with the deeper meter marks also. The bite was on all day and we left willing fish to head back to the ramp.

In the end it was a day for the record books. Releasing many fish, we headed home with 7 coho to 11.4#s, 8 big cutthroat to about 26”. We released 3 chinook, 2 sockeye, had a number of other fish come unbuttoned prior to the boat and had numerous other drive-buys to keep us hopping. It was a great day on the water, awesome fishing and good fellowship.

---