Holy smokes! I haven't seen that many boats out on the lake fishing, since the last Sockeye season. and by the number of guide boats I saw fishing today, the situation in the rivers must be very poor. We got a late start as the kid had morning baseball practice, which put us at the South Bellevue boat launch around 12:30. Shortly thereafter I managed to bend a blade on my prop on a deadhead that I saw too late. Yes, the South end of the lake is still loaded with debris so be careful. It looked like most of the fishing was being done halfway between the mouth of the Cedar and Mercer Island. Not liking crowds I set up shop along Rainer Avenue and trolled South cutting across the mouth of the Cedar in 60' to 70' of water. Herring and mini squid were our baits of choice but did not draw any action from any of the fish we marked. We continued to troll North towards the South end of Mercer Island and passed a boat netting a fish, which was the only action we saw from the other boats. Near the Island I had a strike on the herring but it did not hold and after about another hour we switched to an Apex on one rod and a jointed Rapala on the other. I wasn't long before the Apex got the job done and I handed the kid the rod and let him go to work. The way this fish burned off line and the fact that it wasn't surfacing told me we weren't dealing with a cutt. I brought in the other line and cut the engine and watched the fun. Eventually a nice keeper sized hatchery blackmouth was brought to the boat. Very frustrating to release a salmon that you could have punched if caught out in the Sound, but what can you do? The surface temps were between 45 and 46 degrees, slowly inching higher, and there were continued signs of an algae bloom taking place. I've got a feeling that until we get some rain again all manner of fish will continue stacking up in front of the Cedar river. Just hope we get some soon prior to all the predators cleaning out the smelt before they get a chance to spawn.

---