Was literally on my way back up to Wiser when I decided to stop and fish Samish instead. My goal was to try and eliminate smallmouth and just target largemouth. My approach was to hop from pad field to pad field and fish slower largemouth enticing baits. This worked well for the first hour and my first three fish were largemouth, nothing spectacular but largemouth nonetheless. Flipping a rage tail on a pegged 1/2 ounce and a 1 ounce tungsten for the thicker stuff did the trick, also, a slow rolled Terminator spinnerbait, double willow in a bluegill color worked as well although it made it a little tougher to keep the smallmouth away. I used a slow stop and go retrieve as smallies tend to prefer either steady or a high speed retrieve.

The wind really picked up and the bite went cold and became sporadic at best. I fished depths out to 25 feet but the majority of the bites were around lily pads in 8 feet or less. I ran up to the small northern portion of the lake to escape the wind for a bit. It was difficult here to stay out of the sub 1 pound smallmouth, I would just let them shake off or reel slowly and not set the hook once they started nibbling (visibility was that good).

In the far NE corner I was verbally harassed by a "summer camp" representative that tried to explain to me the "camp" owned the water all the way out to some stupid buoys about 30 yards behind me?? Nice try, Bill friggin' Gates doesn't own the water in front of his docks and neither do you! I was nice and explained that they in fact do not own the 'water', and it is a public waterway but she persisted. I continued fishing through and did my best to diffuse myself and the situation by fishing my way past the area and continuing back south.....at least the little kids were nice and waved :)

Fighting the wind all day depleted my trolling motor faster than usual so I packed it in about 1330 as fighting the wind became more and more futile as I lost power. Still, I wouldn't mind sending a WDFW officer to that camp to explain a certain RCW to everyone there. I hate being harassed while fishing! Maybe if more and more waterfront home owners were charged with misdemeanors for harassing legal anglers the word would get around?

---