Got off to a late start this morning with my wife Rebecca, daughter Hannah, and son Joshua and hit Ward Lake at 7:30 a.m. We were absolutely shocked to find only 2 bank fishermen at the ramp and not a single boat on the lake. Upon launching Joshua hit the hay and was into catching more Zzzz's while Hannah intended on catching fish. Headed northwest from the launch and within 5 minutes had the first rainbow in the net on an Orange wedding ring tipped with corn behind a silver dodger (this was the hot color 2 days earlier). Not too much longer had another ranibow on the long line (green/red wedding ring with a smile blade behind 50/50 lake trolls). We released that fish and things got real slow. The other rod had a pink hoochie tipped with corn behind a 50/50 Luhr Jensen dodger. Since that rod hadn't been touched in a hour I changed out the pink hoochie to a chartreuse wedding ring and it was fish on. First kokanee to the boat. Then a rainbow hit the long line reeled it up and set it loose. As we were setting it back out had the second kokanee of the day hit it at about 50 pulls (half of the 100 I was going for). Had another rainbow hit the chartreuse wedding ring after a quick release it was hit again only this time lost it at the boat before the release (this was the only fish I personally tried to land... lol lesson learned leave the catching to the kids!!!). About this time another boat showed up it was near 9 am (it was great having the lake to ourselves for 1 1/2 hours). Hannah caught another rainbow on the orange wedding ring. Then she caught another rainbow on the long line. About this time almost 11 Hannah said "We go home now?" so we headed towards the launch. At this point Joshua tired of catching Zzzz's woke up and was disappointed we were going fortunately for him about 100ft from the launch with the last line in the water the pole with the chartreuse wedding ring started bouncing. After a few minutes Joshua had his first ever kokanee in the boat and the last fish of the morning. What a glorious day 5 rainbows and 3 kokanee and a lake almost entirely to ourselves. Definitely a 4th of July to remember!

Toni

7/4/2016 8:55:00 PM

Thanks for the great report.

Bay wolf

7/5/2016 9:58:00 AM

Those are the days that fathers will sit back and smile about for many, many years! Great report and glad you got some good quality family time together.

Cokanee

7/5/2016 12:28:00 PM

Hey, I was that other boat. Only 1 koke for us, released bunch of rainbows. The weeds on the bottom are taller than I have ever seen . Don't know where the kokes are hiding ?

Moldy Chum

7/5/2016 12:44:00 PM

Caught all kokanee towards the North end of the lake. I think since the wind was blowing South to North it was concentrating bait there. Thats my guess anyway.

the doc'

7/5/2016 4:27:00 PM

what were the lengths of the koke?

Moldy Chum

7/5/2016 5:08:00 PM

Doc, two were 13 inches the other was 13 1/2 inches. I have photos (with a ruler( but have had the hardest time uploading them. Not sure if it's the photo format or what? I've contacted support@washingtonlakes for help so I'll see. I'd love to have the photos uploaded. Heading to Oregon tomorrow to fish some of my childhood streams so hopefully I'll have some good reports.

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