With the Puget Sound reports being so poor and the I-90 mess going on, I decided to forgo a trip to area 10 and hit the lake for a few hours instead. With it being overcast and in the 60’s, pleasure boat traffic was almost non-existent. The winds were very calm, only becoming noticeable in the early afternoon, one couldn’t ask for better fishing conditions. Making my run down to the South end of Mercer, I noted a phenomena that is normally not noticeable as it typically occurs below the thermocline this time of year. There was a current running North to South, moving at a fairly good clip, enough to affect my trolling speed by a little over .5mph. Surface temps were down a good 4 to 5 degrees from just a week ago, which I’m sure contributed to what I was seeing.

On to the fishing! I started out dragging a Brad’s mini cutplug loaded up with squawfish. I had a heck of a time fishing this lure as it ended up fouling itself multiple times today. I eventually gave up on it and switched over to a hoochie and dodger combination which yielded a good sized fish and a couple of smaller fish at around 30’ down on the rigger. For my last run of the day, I switched over to a soft bait behind a fish flash and hugged the bottom in around 50’ to 60’ of water. This produced my last fish of the day, another good sized fish that took a while to get to the boat. The fish looked familiar, it had a unique mouth deformation that reminded me of a fish that I had previously caught. (if I can find the previous picture, I’ll try and add it to the report) I quickly got the fish back in the water and looked over at my sonar to see it leaving a trail on its way back to the bottom of the lake.

Along with the fish pic, I’ve included a pic of the current’s effect on one of the buoys near the southwest tip of Mercer and what it looks like on the sonar.

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