Left home about 0145 and arrived at Swift Creek campground at 0430 and HOLY COW what a crowd there early to launch! Secret's definitely out and having one less launch site compounds the issue.

With my little boat and so far to travel it took me about 30 minutes to stage everything up prior to launch. Then had to wait another 15 minutes or so to get a turn at the boat ramp. All was good, just hate to lose so much prime fishing time.

Fish Puppy and I ran over to the deep part of the lake and had lines in the water before 0600. Ran our usual Lake Washington sockeye outift of dodger and double hook rig with shrimp. Each of us hooked and boated one in the first 30-45 minutes. First one bit at 55 feet off the rigger. Fish Puppy was still shaking off the sleepies so she instructed me to reel it in and I gladly obliged. Got that one in the box and reset that line on the bottom of the rigger and put it down to 20' while I spooled line out for the other rod. Clipped the second line to a stacker release and began to let out line and WHAMMO!, fish-on on the line that had been temporarily at 20'. Dropping the rigger triggered the strike and Fish Puppy jumped into action and landed #2 for the day.

Sun came up and started a looooong dry spell for us. Fished a couple of hours without a take down. Finally got number 3 off the top line of the rigger at about 45' as we approached the shallower water near Noisy Creek. As we boated the fish we drifted into the shallows which precipitated a line hung on bottom which proceeded to get snagged with another boat despite my warning about the line running out from my reel. Managed to get it in their down rigger and their kicker. While we were sorting it out another boat ran over the line on the other side of the baot so I had two snagged boats going at once - FUN ;-)

Finally got all that sorted out and started trolling again when my electric finally ran the battery out of juice. Trolled with the gas motor for a bit, however it would not troll down slow enough so I shifted in and out of gear for a while to get a slower troll. Ran all the way back through the deep zone back to where it shallowed up near the bend in the lake without another strike so we gave it up at about 1330.

Got some help landing at the Swift Creek ramp on our return - Thanks kind bystander lady! Packed the gear up for the long ride home and took off at about 1430. Stop-in at the burger place in Concrete. Food there was good and they have a unique collection of soda bottles. Worth stopping to support the locals and enjoy a good meal.

All-in-all we had fun and fishing was average to good. Likely would have limited if we had been fishing at first light. Beautiful lake to fish. Could do without the hords of boats - was easier fishing last year. That's the way it goes.

Looking forward to camping out and getting an earlier start on fishing next week.

Tight Lines!

Fish Dawg

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