I rolled up to the lake at 7am and wow it was crowded already. Apparently the secret is out because the entire lower and upper lot was jammed full of trucks and trailers. I was glad to be in a kayak and avoided the long line at the boat ramp. It was a chilly and foggy but calm morning on the lake. The air temp barely hit 40 and the water temp was around 41-42. Glad I had warm fleece underneath my drysuit!

I headed out to the middle of the lake and picked up a solid 12-13” kokanee right off the bat on an orange Brad’s kokanee cut-plug w/ tuna corn at 15’. I didn’t mark much or have another bite until I was nearly at the waterfall on the north side of the lake. When I got there I got another hit on the orange cut plug. Another decent fish. My other tackle was not getting bit so I switched my other rod to a “dusky” flavor cut-plug. Set my lures at 15’ and 25’ on the downriggers. All of the sudden the bite just goes off around 9am. I had 2 double hookups (all landed) within 30 minutes, and I had difficulty deploying both my rods because the bite was so fast and furious. The line was ripped out of my hand as I was trying to put it on the downrigger too. It didn’t take long to get as much kokanee as I wanted. I took home 9 fish, only one dink. No pikeminnow caught, no lost fish and only a couple missed bites. All in all my best day of wintertime fishing at Lake Merwin!

With fishing goals accomplished I decided to cruise around the lake and look at the pretty waterfalls that are all around the lake. On the way home, I topped off with a tasty burger and shake from Burgerville in Woodland! Good times…


Fish were biting from the surface down to 25’, going 1.2-1.4 mph, used flash arrow dodgers, with orange and “dusky” Kokanee cut-plugs w/ 18” leader tipped with tuna corn.

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