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Hit the Lake with every intention of picking up a mess of perch for a fish fry. However, I decided to try my luck and see if anything was going on along the North side of the 520 bridge before I hit up my perch spots. The bait started showing up on the sonar almost immediately and there were plenty of fish arches mixed in as well. The first fish to the boat was a 14.5” kokanee which hit after about 5 minutes of trolling. For the next couple of hours it was pretty steady action with my apex lure getting most of the attention, so much for targeting perch! I moved the gear between 35' and 50' depending on what showed up on the sonar screen. I had to “weed” through several sockeye as they were on my gear whenever I was slowed down by large wakes that seem to plague this area. Once 2:00pm hit the action slowed down quite a bit and I really had to work to pick up my 5th keeper of the day, a fat little koke that hit a hoochie near the East highrise. I must confess that I had some issues with loosing fish today. I know I lost at least one cutt that broke off the trailer hook after catching some air but I lost several more after about 20 seconds of good head shaking. I eventually switched over to a beefier release clip and that seemed to do the trick and provided me with some solid hooksets. I picked up the cutts when I dropped the gear below the bait balls that I ran across and the kokes hit when the gear was fished slightly above the bait and fish arches that showed up on the sonar. I was fishing mostly with UV enhanced gear, and I believe it made a difference as the non UV gear picked up only one fish. It was slightly overcast and cool when I started out, but once the clouds burned off, it turned out to be a scorcher. Water surface temps were above 70 so any fish that needed to be released was yarded in as quickly as possible in an effort to minimize the trauma. If anyone is thinking about trying this fishery, remember it is illegal to remove a salmon from the water if it is not legal to keep it or if it will eventually be released. Just an FYI as the lake is quickly filling up with sockeye who will make a “nuisance”of themselves until the WDFW opens the lake for their retention.

fishingboy

7/10/2010 11:11:00 PM

when is the sock rentention?

fishingboy

7/10/2010 11:14:00 PM

when is the sock rentention?

The Quadfather

7/10/2010 11:28:00 PM

Yeah, they're such a "Nuisance" (-:

snake7676

7/11/2010 7:52:00 AM

Sounds like fun! what was the count for cutts & koks at end of day? : ) thanks for the report .

G-Man

7/11/2010 8:36:00 AM

Dang, the pics didn't attach. I'll email Mike to see if he can't add them. The official count of the day was 3 kokes and 2 cutts kept. 4 sockeye were released at the boat, 1 cutt cut the line and 4 others self released themselves.

Watch the sockeye counts at the WDFW website, when the fish start to get near the 300,000 mark, the State should make an announcement. That is of course that the count gets that far, it may not make it this year.

snake7676

7/11/2010 9:44:00 AM

Thats a good day on lake WA. and yes I have been watching the count still need alot more to come through , keep are fingers crossed : ) thank you G-MAN !

Idstud

7/11/2010 2:31:00 PM

Great report. Nice you got a mixture of fish. I sure hope we get enough sockeye in so we can have a fishery. I got to particiapate in the last one and it was a blast. If you havent done that and they open it this year I high recomend doing it once. Once again great report G-Man

Dave

7/11/2010 6:06:00 PM

Great report!

Lundegard

7/11/2010 8:27:00 PM

For Palmer Lake and Lake Roosevelt kokanee, a treble stinger on the Apex's works real well. The lead single gets bit, while the treble does the heavy lifting. Plus it allows for more pieces of corn!

mav186

7/11/2010 10:52:00 PM

Great report G...we'll have to get together again!

snake7676

7/12/2010 4:49:00 PM

nice catch !

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