Sharphooks
2/25/2019 10:36:28 AMTo jeffc:
Thanks for your report. Sorry to hear you had tough luck recently on Lake Sammamish. If it will make you feel any better, a couple of fishing acquaintances of mine fished the lake this past weekend on Saturday and they had very similar results. They caught 1 Cutthroat about 10 inches and had no other strikes in 4 hours of actual fishing time. They said what fish they marked on their fish finder were very deep. With the surface water temperature now in the very low 40's, it does not surprise me the fish are staying deep. From my long experience fishing Lake Sammamish, this part of the year on the lake always seems to be a bit more challenging. My fishing partner and I most likely will give it a pass until somewhere into mid to late April when the lake water should warm up to around 50 degrees. That always seems to perk up the fishing.
Thanks for your report. Sorry to hear you had tough luck recently on Lake Sammamish. If it will make you feel any better, a couple of fishing acquaintances of mine fished the lake this past weekend on Saturday and they had very similar results. They caught 1 Cutthroat about 10 inches and had no other strikes in 4 hours of actual fishing time. They said what fish they marked on their fish finder were very deep. With the surface water temperature now in the very low 40's, it does not surprise me the fish are staying deep. From my long experience fishing Lake Sammamish, this part of the year on the lake always seems to be a bit more challenging. My fishing partner and I most likely will give it a pass until somewhere into mid to late April when the lake water should warm up to around 50 degrees. That always seems to perk up the fishing.
ElginFishing
2/25/2019 12:13:14 PMjeffc: Sorry to hear of your tough outing! Thank you for sharing a report with us and giving the God's Tooth some work! Been told by a reliable source that fishing is difficult on Sammamish from February until around April, as Sharphooks mentioned, possibly due to spawning cycle.
Not sure what setups you tried but some options include kokanee trolling rig with dodger, dodger with spoon regular setup on fast or slow action, no dodger with regular setup. Lastly, which patterns were tried, 50/50 gold, 50/50 blue, perch, pink, orange, and silver shiner are ones I like to use there.
Hope these ideas may be helpful in the future:-)
Not sure what setups you tried but some options include kokanee trolling rig with dodger, dodger with spoon regular setup on fast or slow action, no dodger with regular setup. Lastly, which patterns were tried, 50/50 gold, 50/50 blue, perch, pink, orange, and silver shiner are ones I like to use there.
Hope these ideas may be helpful in the future:-)
jeffc
2/25/2019 12:26:14 PMThanks Sharphooks for the info. Just started fishing Sammamish for the first time in fall and have lots of learning ahead. Good to know that it slows down this time of year and I'm not the only one struggling out there :) Maybe I need to try another lake for a while...Does the big lake do any better this time of year? i'm in a 14' tinny, so my options might be somewhat limited...
Thanks ElginFishing; always good to have confirmation of what is possibly happening. :)
We ran the 50/50 blue; 50/50 gold, & pink with the narrow side near the hook (similar to your kokanee setups) behind a dodger without much luck. then threw everything else I could at the lake.
All of this info has me thinking about Stevens for Kokes as a next trip. I've been wanting to go up there for a while now but have been waiting for it to get started since I haven't caught one when targeting them on my one trip to Cavanaugh. The slowing of Sammamish may push me up there or to try out Lake WA for the first time in the boat.
Thanks ElginFishing; always good to have confirmation of what is possibly happening. :)
We ran the 50/50 blue; 50/50 gold, & pink with the narrow side near the hook (similar to your kokanee setups) behind a dodger without much luck. then threw everything else I could at the lake.
All of this info has me thinking about Stevens for Kokes as a next trip. I've been wanting to go up there for a while now but have been waiting for it to get started since I haven't caught one when targeting them on my one trip to Cavanaugh. The slowing of Sammamish may push me up there or to try out Lake WA for the first time in the boat.
Sharphooks
2/25/2019 5:25:14 PMTo jeffc:
In answer to your most recent question to me, the big lake, Lake Washington, at least for me and my fishing partner seems to fish somewhat better at this time of the year than does Lake Sammamish. I have no idea why that happens as the lake water temperature on the surface, although at times a degree or two higher, typically reflects about the same temperature. With that said, its Cutthroat too can be in a spawning mode. One thing I will say about Cutthroat and their spawning period, and from what I know, It typically lasts for the most part from late December into early April so we are pretty much in the middle of it at this time. Our last outing on the big lake about 10 days ago brought 4 nice heavy weight Cutthroat into our boat, 16 to 22 inches. They were all in beautiful condition. It was apparent upon gutting them out that they were feeding heavily on some kind of small size fish that were 2 to 3 inches in length which were highly digested. We missed a couple good strikes and had a couple fish that came unbuttoned in the process of fishing for 4 1/2 hours. We fished exclusively using the God's Tooth half/half gold/silver in a double or tandem configuration with a 4 1/2 inch sling blade with the downrigger set at between 25 to 40 feet. We fished the general vicinity of Champaign Point to the Juanitta Bay area. As for fishing in a 14 ft. boat on the big lake, if you go out in that type of craft, I would highly, highly encourage you to be super careful about predicted wind speeds as the big lake with a good southerly wind particularly in that area can really get nasty.
In answer to your most recent question to me, the big lake, Lake Washington, at least for me and my fishing partner seems to fish somewhat better at this time of the year than does Lake Sammamish. I have no idea why that happens as the lake water temperature on the surface, although at times a degree or two higher, typically reflects about the same temperature. With that said, its Cutthroat too can be in a spawning mode. One thing I will say about Cutthroat and their spawning period, and from what I know, It typically lasts for the most part from late December into early April so we are pretty much in the middle of it at this time. Our last outing on the big lake about 10 days ago brought 4 nice heavy weight Cutthroat into our boat, 16 to 22 inches. They were all in beautiful condition. It was apparent upon gutting them out that they were feeding heavily on some kind of small size fish that were 2 to 3 inches in length which were highly digested. We missed a couple good strikes and had a couple fish that came unbuttoned in the process of fishing for 4 1/2 hours. We fished exclusively using the God's Tooth half/half gold/silver in a double or tandem configuration with a 4 1/2 inch sling blade with the downrigger set at between 25 to 40 feet. We fished the general vicinity of Champaign Point to the Juanitta Bay area. As for fishing in a 14 ft. boat on the big lake, if you go out in that type of craft, I would highly, highly encourage you to be super careful about predicted wind speeds as the big lake with a good southerly wind particularly in that area can really get nasty.