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Met up with a friend and decided to fish the Lake WA. cutthroat. It seems like from reports of late, that they are back in the game. We launched at Magnuson about 11:00 am,mostly calm weather, a few very light sprinkles, and overcast. We headed straight down to the N. side of 520.
Dropped are gear in on the East end of the bridge--N. side. Within about 5 minutes in the water Michael had a fish on. He had never caught a Lk. WA. cutt. so this was pretty cool for him. He was fishing a 5" flasher with chrome tape, behind the flasher was a green speckled mini hootchie. We were both pretty excited and after catching 12" kokanee the past few weeks, this felt pretty nice. Got it in the boat, weighed 2lb 10 oz. 20" fish. Fat hard body and healthy looking. Fish was taken at 25' on DR. in 180' water. A short while later I had a take down, clip release. When I started to reel the fish must have been moving towards the boat because I could swear I had no fish.... then my ultra light rod had some nice action for only a short moment. Fish self released. I too was on the green mini hootchie.
I still feel perplexed about how to target these fish. Most reports currently say the fish are caught between 25-40'. I will spot plenty of bait balls, and today with predator fish amongst the bait balls, this at 75-100' depth. I saw the thermocline at about 70'. That seemed deeper than recent reports, although I know it changes?? So should I look to fish just under the thermocline..? Should I chase after these bait balls way down at 80-90 ft? I admit I've never caught a cutt. from chasing the bait at that depth. So I mostly stayed where the fish was, 25'.

snake7676

5/25/2010 9:01:00 PM

Right on nice healthy looking fish ! When I fish lake wa. where ever I mark fish / bait balls I tend to have my gear just a few feet above them and allways hook into them for the most part. Nice to see reports from lake wa. coming in on a day to day basis keep up the good work. and thanks for the report.

G-Man

5/25/2010 9:35:00 PM

I think your too close to the bridge and picking up the anchor lines. I fished that area this last weekend and the thermocline was sitting between 20 and 30 feet down depending on how far from shore you were. Look at the bridge when you pick up the bait balls. If you are in front of a letter marked on the bridge, that is the anchor line. The further you get from the bridge the deeper you'll see the blob or massive arch if your in raw data mode.

The Quadfather

5/25/2010 10:25:00 PM

Good point G-man on watching for the letters. I'll check that out.

mav186

5/26/2010 6:06:00 AM

That's great Quad...thanks for the nice report!

topdawg47

5/26/2010 8:31:00 AM

Nice catch

Idstud

5/27/2010 10:53:00 PM

Nice! I need to get out there and do some fishing on that lake. The only time I fished it was back in 05 or 06 when they opened it for sockeye. Now that was a fishery.

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