With winds consistently in the upper teens and twenties plus a bit of rain, the fishing conditions were definitely not the best. I motored north from the Newport launch in search of protected waters hoping to satisfy my fishing jones. I didn’t need to travel far nor wait too long before my first takedown of the day. I brought 4 fish the boat in fairly short order, including my first Lake Washington kokanee of the summer season. I eventually worked my way around the north tip of Mercer and headed out deeper waters along the I-90 bridge. I couldn’t buy a strike along I-90 and changing gear, depth and speed didn’t help at all. I was marking some large fish deep and I suspect that they were sockeye so no hoochies were deployed in an effort to minimize hooking into one of them. After about 3 hours of rain and wind I called it a day and headed home, my fishing jones sufficiently satisfied. Today pounding the bottom in 40’ to 60’ of water using a flasher and Apex combo accounted for all of the fish caught. The winds were predominantly out of the south the entire time I was on the water and the precipitation alternated between rain and drizzle. Surface temps were in the lower 60s and the thermocline was setup between 30’ and 40’. I didn’t spot much clustered bait on the sonar though there were still quite a few floating sticklebacks out on the water.

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