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The 2019 Renton PSA Lake Washington Trout Derby has come and gone. The Renton PSA volunteers did an awesome job in assuring that this family focused event was enjoyed by all. I apologize but I lost the scrap of paper I wrote the derby results on but there were somewhere 55 cutthroat weighed in with the biggest coming in at 3.4 pounds.

Although we weighed in a nice cutthroat, for our boat the big news were the kokanee. After a 2:30 wake-up and a 3:30 Skagit County departure we launched at the WDFW ramp in Kenmore 4:30 derby morning. In sticking with my pre-derby planning we pulled the throttle back around Rose Point just north of Kirkland and started the hunt. Our plan was to start fishing in the Kirkland area, then as required work our way south to Renton in our search for the winning fish.

Although we started with gear down in the Rose Point area we didn’t start to see action until about ½ hour later or until we were out front of Heritage park. We were in about 80 feet of water with the gear running at 48’ and 52’ when the clip pops and we were fish on. After a lengthy battle we released a nice chinook jack. From that point on it seemed that every time we trolled over the top of an underwater hump we were fish on. We ended up fishing the Juanita-Evergreen Point area the whole morning. Enjoying solid action, we caught a mix of chinook (jacks and adults), sockeye, cutthroat and kokanee before we pulled the gear and headed for the weigh in.

We were running 8” Protroll flashers, mini hoochies or flies with herring strips. Earlier in the week I had tied up some generic salmon smolt flies, hoping to capitalize on the out migration of salmon smolts. Overall the plan turned out to be solid, it seemed that everything in the lake liked our offerings. We fished various depths but most of our action was with the gear at 46-52’ as we trolled over high spots in the bottom contour. Our flasher to lure leader was 28” of 15# fluorocarbon. Although we had various corn concoctions onboard, all our fish were caught on lures tipped with herring strips. Our trolling speed varied between 1.4-2.3 MPH but 1.8-2.1 was the hot trolling speed.

As mentioned earlier the big news was the kokanee. Although we fished a given area there were large schools of kokanee all over the lake. We saw schools of kokanee on the meter as far north as Arrowhead Point and as far south as South Point on Mercer Island. There were large schools of kokanee off Champagne Point, the Kirkland area, Madina, Faben Point, Seward Park and various areas along the west side of Mercer Island. My previous experiences with Lake Washington kokanee were incidental catches of 10-12”’ kokanee. Derby day we caught many fat 14-18” kokanee with the big fish being 3.13 pounds. At 3.13 pounds it would be a trophy kokanee anywhere in the state.

Our Lake Washington Derby day was a blast. The event is well run, the food was good and it was a great time to catch up with old friends. Everybody went home with some form of fishing swag. Some time soon I/we plan to target kokanee on Lake Washington. With many launch sites and the scattered schools of kokanee the kokanee fishing should be a solid go to option for our local fishermen. The fish are everywhere; chose a convenient launch and go on the search. There is no need to chase reports or look for a flotilla of boats, believe in your kokanee mojo and you may be rewarded!

salmonkiller

6/18/2019 12:42:49 PM

HOLY COW!!!! LOOK AT THAT PIG OF A KOKE!!
Nice job!!!
In the past all the large Kokes I have caught out of the big lake had weird bugs on them!!! Yuck!!!
Any Bugs or growth on those pigs?
Is the sonar image at 82.2 FOW the kokanee ?
I fished lake wa ( south mercer island areas ) on memorial day weekend and didn’t see any schools of kokanne, just single arches here and there…… The old goat set up and I was using and the speed I was fishing would not have interested a single kokanee!! LOL
Maybe I going to target some kokanne on the big lake this weekend.
I was going to fish the derby but ended up celebrating my nieces graduation from high school!

sebastes

6/19/2019 3:03:43 PM

Hello RSeas,
I wanted to talk to you more about the kokanee you caught in Lake Washington. I work on Kokanee recovery in Lake Sammamish and it was believed that the Lake Washington run of kokanee had either hybridized with sockeye or blinked out. I was curious if you kept the fish whole (still have the head)? If so, we would be interested in collecting the heads/tissue samples so we can do some genetics testing and extract the otoliths. Give me a call 425-287-2370 Dave

rseas

6/19/2019 4:02:45 PM

Dave I left you a message.

Bilgewater

6/19/2019 3:09:23 PM

Thanks for that report! It was refreshing to hear you caught kokanee with herring strips on mini hootchies or flies behind ProTroll flashers, rather than using the so-called traditional 4 inch dodgers, corn, etc.

About what size were those herring strips?

rseas

6/19/2019 4:05:27 PM

Bilge water, the herring strips were approximately 1/4" wide and 1 1/2-2" long.

salmonbarry

6/19/2019 9:18:40 PM

Great report as usual Randy and great seeing you and Karen out there! That's one pig of a kokanee! We ended up with 5 all between 14"- 16" range!

Fish Dawg

6/20/2019 2:19:25 PM

Great report, Randy, and what a dandy kokanee!

Was a pleasure visiting with you and your crew!

Would love to do a joint kokanee venture sometime if you’re game.

I’m intrigued with the kokanee taking the same baits as the cutthroat. The one kokanee we landed bit a Brad’s KCP stuffed with cured pikeminnow and tipped with a pikeminnow strip.

dogfish7

6/20/2019 3:43:35 PM

Great report as always rseas. Nice Kokanee! I have read that the trucked sockeye in Baker Lake have been seen with Kokanee during the spawning process in the tributaries of the lake and spawned with them, I guess some weren't milked or had the eggs removed. Makes sense since they are basically the same fish minus the anadromous function. I was wondering if anyone else out there might have heard or seen this is any of the other salmon species? I have heard of the "Chumpy" Chinook/Pink hybrid, but that could be a Jackalope.

riverhunter

6/21/2019 10:34:43 AM

I’m not sure what you’re asking. Milked or had eggs removed? If any of that would have happened to the trucked sockeye then there is no need to truck them in there. Again maybe I misread your comment but can’t seem to figure what you are asking.

riverhunter

6/21/2019 4:00:34 PM

Also the so called “chumpy” is a chum/pink hybrid. I don’t think chinook and pink can hybridize but I know chum and pinks can

afk

6/21/2019 6:22:04 AM

As always Randy, great report. Thanks. Andy

Guitarfish

6/21/2019 11:50:27 AM

Awesome fish rseas. As always your reports are awesome. I hope you can work with SEBASTES and wdfw.. In fact I would make a pitch to all users of this site, to work with SEBASTES and wdfw on this, if you can. We really need some scientifically defensible answers re: what the heck has happened to the lake WA sockeye. The hypothesis that they have hybridized with the kokes is as plausible as any I have heard.

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