Darn, we missed the better fishing day by 24 hours...

A cold front rolled in during the night and brought wind, rain, and cold. And locked-jawed fish, at least for us. I had the pleasure of fishing with my friends Gringo Pescador, Salmonbarry, and Robbie today on Lake Washington. We launched at the SE 40th ramp in Newport and had lines in the water at 8:30. We started off the NW corner of Mercer Island per Barry's recommendation and managed to find some calm water - for awhile anyway.

Within ten minutes of putting out my Old Goat lure off a planer board I had the first cutthroat of the day, a nice 14" fish. I was running 1 1/4 oz of weight 100 feet back, then 50 feet out on the planer board. OG 2 1/2" lure with a watermelon dodger in front.

The quick fish gave us hope but unfortunately as the morning progressed the wind picked up, the rain got heavier. and our optimism faded. By the time we rounded the north end of Seward Park we decided enough of the this wind and pulled up our gear, ran down to the mouth of the Cedar and started a new troll going north. The water was calmer and as we worked north and got past noon the wind and rain started to moderate and behold! A splash of blue in the sky.

A warm lunch of brats courtesy of Mark revitalized us enough as we worked across and in front of Paul Allen's home. (he never did come out to join us, I guess he didn't get the message...).

As we again trolled north and in about the same spot that I caught our first fish Barry and Robbie each hooked and landed kokanees. A glimmer of hope sustained us until 3:30 at which time I decided enough was enough and cried "uncle". Sad to say, for Mark it was a boat ride only.

Despite the poor fishing the comradery was 5 stars and as always fishing with friends beats a whole lot of other things I could have been doing. I'll taking fishing every time!

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