Well I finally had some time to get out on the lake and what a great time it was. Started late in the morning, and was trolling the south side of Mercer Island by around 11:30. I had a silver Pro-Troll trout killer out the back 35’ down while I was prepping some herring rigs and a rod with which to use them, when it goes off like a shot. I could tell it was a big fish, and it ran on me several times, not in typical cutt fashion. As I finally got it close to the boat, I realized that I had a rally nice sized Sockeye on the end of the line. Between the light line, whip like rod I was using and the size of the fish, I couldn’t manage a clean release and there is now a sockeye swimming around in the lake with a hook in the back of it’s tongue. I put out a dodger and hoochie combo and went to work on re-rigging the trout killer that I managed to save. About halfway through that process the rod goes off again and this time it turns out to be a typical 18” cutt which hit at the same depth as the sockeye. Back out went the hoochie combo and as I finished re-rigging my trout killer the rod goes off again! This time it turns out to be a koke just shy of 15”, and really fat, bonus! So, I bag the idea of using herring or my trout killer and put down the hoochie combo and used that for the rest of the day. Took a break around 1:00pm and picked up Slimyslab at Coulon and headed back to Mercer. We ended up bagging one more 14.5” koke lost another near the boat, released a rainbow that went about 16” and a couple of similar sized cutts. The only rod that got any attention was the one with the hoochie and dodger combo. Herring and needlefish were tried but got no takers. The surface temps were between 61 and 62 degrees and the we had a stiff wind out of the NW. The thermocline was around 25’ where we were fishing and all the fish hit between 35’ and 40’ down. The preferred speed was a brisk 2 mph with the outside rod getting the action on the turns. I’m hoping that this is a sign of good things to come!

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