My wife flew off to San Diego today for 3 weeks so after taking her to Seatac and sending her on her way, raced back home to grab the Tin Cup and get on the water! Hey, at least I waited for her plane to take off! haha

Now being a beautiful day and about 3 pm knew there were not too many options where it wouldn't be crazy let alone, finding a place to even launch the boat so chose Atlantic city to shoot for some late afternoon cutts or kokes. I have enough fillets for smoking in the freezer so was going to do some C&R when possible today.

There were a few spots left in the parking lot when I arrived so quickly dropped the boat in the water so no one would take the remaining ones and set out to start fishing. There was a pretty stiff breeze blowing out of the north and of course, tons of pleasure boater and water crafts stirring up the water to significant chop. Decided to stay on the west side and troll towards Seward Park and start with the ace hi-fly hootchie with a hand tied leader with a clown dodger leading the way Now with so much chop on the water I went with a 2 1/2 oz weight and not use the down rigger and it was the right move because no sooner did I get half way along my rod just buries into the water and this fish leaps up way behind the boat with all the gear attached! I thought I may have hooked a sockeye the way it was acting as it ran off about 30 feet of line before I could even start getting it in. As I got it close it still looked like a sockeye with silver and blue colors coming up and was hard to net with the weight and all but finally got it in and saw it was a big cutty! Unfortunately this guy had the hooks gone through his gill and was under his chin and bleeding bad so brought it in and into the cooler it went.

Things got really rough out there but kept the boat closer to shore between 60 and 85 feet and was marking a lot of fish around 30 to 40 feet down. Wasn't too long before had another vicious take down and this one came in easier and was able to get into the net for a picture before releasing ( I am new at this sort of thing so apologize in advance of quality of picture) Got the line down again and right away the rod pulled but had a different action to it so slowly brought it in a was rewarded with a decent size kokanee!

About 7 pm decided to just troll back to the launch and call it a day as finally things had calmed down with most of the boaters leaving and the wind calming down a bit so was making my last run when another grab and run and it was fish on! This one acted like the 1st one and didn't want to have anything to do with me so after a fun battle got it to the net this poor guy had a hook in the eye so it was one for the cooler. Got back to the launch and there was only a few rigs left at 8:30 pm so was out in a jiffy and on my way home to clean fish and get ready for another day on the water as I had contacted Nick, the gentleman who was with me in Eastern WA on Deep lake that saved my truck from drowning to see if he was free to fish someday and told me his only option was Sunday. Debated on American lake but once again chose Lake WA as I need new tires on the truck and am trying to keep my miles short until I get them installed this next week plus I knew we would have limited time on American before it got real busy on a hot Sunday! Report to follow!

See you on the water!

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