I was out sunday.same results lots of fish marked,no takers.better luck next time.thanks form the report.

You kinda bum me out. If the expert cant catch fish, I may leave my Seahawk in the garage this week.

Lots of bait makes the cutts not very interested in our presentations. Well get them in a couple months and we ll make up for this time of year.

G-man. Ive been waiting for a good report to make me excited about coming down and fishing washington again, but all i see is nothing nothing nothing! it would be fun to meet you on the water and talk a little, PM me when you think the fishing is improving, and ill let you know when im heading down!

I thought about going out on Sunday.. I have a bimini but not an enclosure yet.. so I wasn't super excited by the weather. I did manage to buy a new reel and some new tackle this weekend maybe I'll get out next weekend.. what calender do you look at?

Archer - There are a couple of places one can go to check out the moon phase for a given date and what it may mean for the potential bite.
Here are a couple of links: http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmaster/fishingtips/news/story?page=bass_solunar
and also: http://www.in-fisherman.com/solunar-calendar
A quick scan shows that your better rated days are when the moon is full or new and the worse days are in between those two phases. The other bit of info you get are the optimum times for the bite on a given day. Weather also plays a factor and yesterday was a double whammy of crappy weather and a poor moon phase.
FF - I'm betting the weekend of the 15th of April will be hot. The smolts should be making their way into the lake by then and the calendar indicates it should be a good bite. This figures as I'll be east of the mountains chasing turkeys.

My sonar sucks and I'm saving to get a new one. I want to get the one with side imaging. Is the straight line across your bait/lure? What the light color at top at surface to 20 ft? I have read that small mouth suspend over deep water. Have you tried verticle jigging?

The line is my downrigger ball and my lure is back about 100 feet or more. The top of the image is what you typically see when you display the information without any noise reduction. My new unit will show the water disturbances generated by passing boats, waves and diving birds and adds a bit to the clutter. I'm not too sure about smallies suspending over deep water unless there is some kind of solid structure present like a rock wall or sunken forest/piling. You'll find both in Lake Washington, the rock wall typ stucture at the bridge high rises and the sunken forrests and pilings can be found in many places throughout the lake. I've never picked up a smallie in open water unless it was right on the bottom. As for jigging, it's not something that I've tried for these cutts but I've promised myself that I would give mooching a shot at some time.

G-Man, I see that you were trolling around 1.7 - 1.8 mph. Is there a prime trolling speed to catch cutts and kokes?

It really depends upon the gear you use. If I'm trolling a small flatfish or spinner, my speed will be lower in the 1.4 to 1.5 range. I don't care to troll much slower than that as one doesn't tend to cover a lot of water at those speeds. I've found that the 1.7 to 1.8 range lets me cover a fair amount of water and allows me to fish most of the gear that I like to use. Occasionally I will run around at 2.5 to 3 mph when chasing coho in the lake and pick up a cutt, so just make sure the gear you are using has good action at the speed you are trolling and the rest will take care of itself.

I will be out tomorrow (Sunday) and it's been a while and despite me saying I will one day I don't keep a journal. How long of a leader do you use behind your flasher or pop gear? Last year I tried the white mini-hoochie behind a 000 dodger a lot but never picked anything up. Perhaps it was the leader length? Tomorrow I am trying the Hoochie, herring, mini cut plug, dick nite, and wedding rings. Anyway hoping to have a good afternoon and hopefully I will see you on the water. I will be on the green/white bayliner w/ downriggers mounted on the wakeboard tower. Can't miss me. Hope to meet you one day!

Cuthroatkiller - Sorry I didn't respond to your question sooner. Leader length isn't critical unless your are using a lure that needs the dodger to supply the action. With a hoochie, I use about 3 times the length of the dodger as a starting point. Also I tend to use long leaders of around 4' behind my dodgers/flashers when using spoons, spinners, apex lures and plugs.