Set out to fish Lake Washington on Sunday, 6/8 in preparation for the Lake WA PSA cutthroat derby next weekend.

Fish Princess and I headed out at 0440 and made a quick stop for cup of worms and cup of coffee and picked-up Jade and her dog, Thorin, at 0515. Jade is one of my son’s friends and was our guest Fish Princess for the day. Launched at Coulon around 0545 and had lines in the water by about 0600, beginning our troll just out in front of the Cedar River and headed northbound (with the wind).

The day started out inauspiciously. Clear skies forecast for the day were inhibited by some moderately heavy cloud cover and there was enough breeze to make it a bit chilly. Also, began by running a plug out behind us about 95’ (flat line) and then proceeded to put the first line on the downrigger. Managed to get the two rigs in the same area and tangled the whole thing into a major snarled-up mess.

Pulled all of that into the boat and got a line running off the other downrigger then set a sling blade and wiggle hoochie combo out as the next flat line rig. While I worked on cutting and freeing the mess, we had two smallish cutthroat (outbound, I suspect) in the 9” - 10” bracket hit the flat line. Got them both to the boat and released them unharmed.

There is still a lot of debris in the south end of the lake so we had to check and reset the gear repeatedly. Also, with my focus on the untangling operation the trolling pattern looked more like a drunk-stumbling path. Just before 0800 and around the SW corner of Mercer Island I finally got everything untangled and got all 3 lines running long enough to enjoy my coffee and a few rolls for breakfast. Meanwhile the girls did their best to stay warm by huddling up with the dog under a snuggie.

Pulled a variety of plugs including F7 chrome flatfish, F7 glow flatfish, and pink/chrome Brad’s mini cutplug (stuffed with herring). Used a little XXX craw jelly on the flatfish. All of these produced exactly nothing. Over the next hour or so we continued our northward troll and worked westerly toward Seward Park. We picked up a few more small cutties on the orange/gold sling blade with UV pink wiggle hoochie tipped with worm. Went maybe 5 – 6 on these all released.

About 0900 as we approached the north end of Seward Park we finally got a solid take down on a rod fished at 50’ with the chartreuse Ace Hi-fly with a chartreuse garlic herring teaser strip. Fish Princess landed a nice fish at about 18” and into the box it went. Fished our way around to the Seward Park bay to get a little relief from the wind and based on Salmonbarry’s recent report of success there. This proved to be a good move! Not only did the sun threaten to break through, we had a double header on very solid and very acrobatic sea run cutts. I was on the first rod that went off and just as the fish surfaced I noticed the second rod release and begin the hard throb. The Fish Princess jumped into action and we had a little fire drill to keep the fish from tangling the lines, retrieving down rigger cables, and manning the net, and avoiding a curious Thorin who was patrolling to see what all the commotion was about (I’m sure it looked very Keysotne Cops to any passersby). Jade did a great job on the net with my fish and it was a good thing I have the extendible handle as my reel quit working with about 10’ of line still out. The Fish Princess played her beast expertly to boat and we netted that one as well with hi-fives all around. A nice pair of 19” bruisers, one buck and one hen, fell to the Ace Hi-fly combo on one side at 58’ and a sunrise hoochie tied Herzog-style behind a small Abe & Al with silver scale tape at 40’ on the other side.

After a short restroom break at one of the beach parks, we got back on the troll looking for a fish for Jade. About 2/3 of the way to the 90 bridge the sunrise hoochie rig at 40’ got nailed again. Our guest Fish Princess did a fine job playing the fish to boat and we added it to our collection. It was the best fish of the day at about 20.5” and pushing 3 pounds. After 2 productive fishing trips in the last few weeks, Thorin is now a certified fish dawg!

4 sets of very chunky fillets are soaking in the brine as I write this post. Looking forward to seeing some of you at the derby next week!

Tight Lines!

Fish Dawg
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