I read the reports about Sammamish and decided to check it out for myself. The plan was to launch close to first light. Unfortunately, I way underestimated the Interstate 405 morning traffic. At about 8:00am I hit the water, armed with a manual downrigger, dick nite dodgers, needlefish, wedding rings, jigs, pop gear just in case. I used the exact setup as successfully reported, but wasn’t as lucky. It rained most of the time, which usually has worked well for me on the lakes. My fish finder reported a lot of fish at 17’-29’, and they were occasionally at 5-7’ deep. The fish were numerous in the cove near the boat launch, going out or in the cove to the other side of the creek, but surprisingly not at all straight out from the creek. No fish were caught, so I can’t identify the fish on my finder. They could have been perch, bass or trout. I saw a couple of large, brown colored salmon roll closer to the creek. The roar of Interstate 90 was disruptive to my enjoyment of this serenely beautiful winter water. North on the lake is not as loud. My highlight was when an enormous flock of at least hundreds, if not a thousand white birds near the park went into full gyrating maneuvers out over the water, then retreated. Oh, I also had one moment of excitement as I was returning to the dock. The downrigger popped off! It may have been a strike or my downrigger hit bottom. There were only a few birds here and there on the lake. I think this means that the small hatch that birds and cutthroat were feeding upon have gone. Happy fishing!

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