This is a 2 for 1 report as I fished Friday and Saturday and would rate them both the same on the Washington Lakes fish-o-meter.

Friday I fished with SlimySlab and focused on the North end of the Lake. As we headed out from the Newport launch we noticed that we had Northwesterly winds and thought that this might not be a good sign. We started our fishing in front of Thorton creek in 40’ to 60’ of water and it wasn’t long after we marked a few fish that SlimySlab had a strike on his Double Whammy fished behind lead core line. Unfortunately that strike was all we got from that area so we headed over to Juanita Bay. We started at the North end and I didn’t even get a chance to put my line in the downrigger clip, when I hooked into a 12” rainbow. He took my white mini hoochie and managed to self released at the boat as we were contemplating netting him. Subsequent passes in the mouth of the Bay yielded no further action so we headed South to Yarrow Point and set up shop in 80’ feet of water. By this time the wind had picked up and whitecaps were present and tossing us around quite a bit. We trolled South from Yarrow point to Groat Point with nothing more to show for our efforts and called it a day.

Saturday I decided to try the Lake once more as a couple of sources said the local rivers weren’t worth the effort. I started out across from Seahawks Headquarters and noticed that a few young sockeye were jumping which looked promising. I made several passes down to Clark Beach Park and back, fishing between 20’ and 40’ down without a strike. I decided to troll further South and around South Point which looked very promising with bait and fish showing up on my fish finder between 30’ and 40’ down. I thought I’d be into a fish here for sure, but no one seemed interested in my offerings. My last ditch effort was to fish the mouth of the Cedar, staying in 50’ to 70’ of water. The young sockeye were jumping here as well and I finally hit paydirt trolling a cut plug herring behind a 000 dodger 35’ down. A nice healthy fish in the 20” – 21” range and was released after a quick photo shoot. The wind was nearly non-existent today and the surface water temps were between 44 and 45, the same as they were on Friday.

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