I had the day off and was debating if I should hit the lake or wait a day for the fish to adjust to the high pressure that has moved into our area. With great weather forecast for the weekend, I figured I’d get on the lake today rather than share it with half the residents of Seattle tomorrow. Despite the late start and glaring sun the bite was pretty good and I brought 4 fish to the boat in 2 hours of trolling. All were released including a fish that I swear having caught before. It was a large fish that had a distinctly deformed jaw, which I was not able to capture in my pics. The fish all came in the open water south of Mercer Island with my gear set about 5’ below the first thermocline, which is sitting between 35’ and 40’. Despite there being a good number of sockeye in the area, I did manage to avoid hooking into them by keeping up my speed and making sure not to set my gear too deep. I included a sonar pic of a school of sockeye sitting between 50’ and 70’. I also spotted enforcement out on the lake checking up on folks, and you can bet they will also be out in the first week of July looking for expired registration stickers.
The bite died off and I decided to see if the perch were schooled up and putting on weight after having spawned. I picked a spot in the east channel and anchored in 18’ of water, tossing out some small curly tailed grubs tipped with a bit of worm. It took some doing, but I managed to pick up enough 9” fish to feed the family fried perch for dinner.
The water is still a bit green but the algae has clumped and visibility is around 10’. There are still quite a few dead sticklebacks floating on the surface, I think the fish and birds have all had their fill of them. My trolling gear today included a mini hoochie and a mini Apex, both of which brought 2 fish to the boat. I figured that while the sticklebacks are still easy pickings, might as well keep the gear about the same size.

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