I decided to give it a go today, despite the winds being above 15mph as measured by WSDOT at the 520 bridge. I figured as the winds were out of the south, I’d find a few places that I could fish that were sheltered from the wind. Shortly into my trolling I was contemplating dropping the top as it was really making it difficult to get the boat’s course and speed under control. As it looked like the skies could open up at any minute, I kept the top up and dealt with the wind as best I could. I tried a few different lures and had nothing to show for it and finally out of frustration switched to kokanee gear to see if there were any in the biting mood. Shortly thereafter, I saw my rod doing the fish-on dance and must have taken a bit too long to extract myself from the confines of my cabin. The fish had managed to release the line from the clip, however, I suspect that it may have torn out the hook as I reeled in nothing but my gear sans bait and a tiny scale impaled on my trailing hook. I re-baited my gear and sent it back down to 35’ in hopes of a repeat performance. By this time the rain had started and it was coming down fairly hard. I was thinking that I should put my rain gear on, just in case, but I figured that it was just going to be a passing squall. Naturally, my rod starts the fish-on dance at this time and not wanting to miss the fish, I head out into the elements sans rain gear. A few seconds into the fight and I realize that I’m going to be soaked by the time I get the fish to the boat. The fish is running pretty hard on me and I’m thinking that I’ve hooked into a good sized resident chinook. I eventually coax the fish to the boat and find that it is an exceptionally large post spawn cutt. Though still dark and thin in the tail section, you could see that it was making up for lost time by gorging itself on the bait in the area. The fish had taken both hooks so I brought it aboard to remove them and snap a quick pic before releasing it to continue feeding. Soaked and hungry, I called it a day and headed back to the launch. BTW – whoever it was I saw fishing the sunken forest as I ran south, looked like a nice smallie that you released.

---