So, after getting blown around north Puget Sound in a failed quest for lingcod this morning I needed to run some fresh water through the motors and wash the salt-spray off the boat. Yeah, I could have done the hose in the driveway drill, but what better excuse to drop the boat in Lake Meridian and get another shot at the kokes that thumbed their noses at me the last time out.

Boat in the water around 1530 and ran around the lake once to flush the main motor. Then fired-up the kicker and started running the kokanee gear. First offerings in the water were purple/orange glow sling blade paired with pink/orange/white hoochie with a brass spinner blade tipped with a gulp earthworm on one rod and UV sling blade with tequila sunrise wiggle hoochie tipped with pink fire corn on the other rod. Glow rod got ignored while I had two on in rapid sequence on the wiggle hoochie. First one jumped right at the boat and popped-off while the other one was numero uno in the boat.

Given that the pink fire corn was getting bit consistently, I changed the bait on my other rig to pink corn. This still did not produce any bites on this rig. Thanks to a tip from member Rippasher06 I switched this rig out in favor of the pink splatter Dick Nite dodger and a metallic pink sin-n-glo tipped with the pink corn and used an extra long set-back of about 90'. This became the hot combo with all but one of the fish I hooked for the rest of the day coming on this rig.

I had one go bat-sh!t crazy jumping all over the surface and unhook itself. I had another on line 'A' swim circles around line 'B' and escape (that one took some time to untangle/re-tie) and two others come unbuttoned as I was reaching for the net. Ended the day with four decent keepers and had my limit fish on twice but could not coax either of them into the boat. All-in I was about 4 for 10.

The weather was warm and winds were calm with occasional sunbreaks for the 2 hours or so that I was on the lake. This was a welcome relief compared to this morning's adventure and the cooperative kokes made for a better way to close out the day. Looking forward to kokanee fillets in the smoker tomorrow.

Good Luck and Tight Lines!

Fish Dawg

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