So some days you just make the rights decisions and other days you don't- today was on the plus side of this equation! My airport driver Mark called me Thursday after I told him I was fishing in the south sound derby on Saturday and asked if he could come along with his son in law Justin who had yet to catch a fish all summer! I said sure as more lines in the water the better!

Well when I went to Outdoor emporium to get my derby tickets found out there was no derby! Only on the Columbia river Saturday so called Mark and gave him the good news and bad news. Bad news was we weren't fishing in a derby; good news was about half the people I expected to be fishing with would probably not be there!

Now my church buddy Ron Brown was fishing area 11 Friday with his brother and promised a report when they got in- he called around 3 pm saying it was windy and slow out there and that the fish checker had reported only 2 fish caught by the time they got in. Hmmm, so now what to do?

Made up my mind that if this poor kid had been fishing all summer without a fish, I may have a better chance of getting him into some fish on Lake WA instead of area 11. Boy did that turn out to be the 1st right decision I made as we found out later while fishing and listening to the outdoor line on my portable radio that they were shutting down area 11 at noon today!! But back to the start of the day~

Met at Coulon park at 5:30 and after getting everything ready headed out straight across the lake towards the west side of Rainier beach. Had one set up with a watermelon brad's cut plug stuffed with canned tuna mixed with pro-cure bloody tuna oil and another green polka dot one stuffed with tuna mixed with prawn/shrimp oil. Set both lines back 80 feet and then 35 feet on one and 55 on the other. Now since there were 3 of us I ran a 3rd long line with an ounce and a quarter lead with a green apex tipped with green maggots.

It wasn't long before the rod at 55' pops off and this fish takes off! I hand the rod to Justin and he is fighting his first fish of the summer!! Unfortunately as he's fighting it I realize it is probably a sockeye and will not be taking this one home! Sure enough as he gets it close see that it is a huge buck probably pushing 6 lbs! We get it in the net, unhook it, admire it for a second and then release it back to do it's business later up the Cedar!

After 2 more sockeye we realize we need to move out of this area and get things changed up to get into the faces of the cutthroats so motor over to the west side of Mercer and set the rods higher up the column. I change things over to a walleye spin drift set up with a slow death hook and tip one with a new gulp nightcrawler/fire tiger pattern and the other with a new florescent green gulp worm/green pattern. Boy did this turn out to be my 2nd right decision of the day as it was pretty much non-stop action ( an occasional lull here and there) until we reached a one person limit on cutthroat plus 1 small mouth! The highlight being as we had one take down so hard and run that we thought we hooked another sockeye so were very careful bringing in until it got close and we could see it was bright colored and a cutty! Netted that bad boy and turned out to be the biggest of the day at 21 1/2" and close to 3lbs!

Things were getting busy on the lake so called it a day around 1:30 but had some very happy people on the boat so headed it to take out. Now in one of the take out lanes there seemed to be some metal debris on the ramp so they had it blocked off so make for an interesting take out juggling around boaters and jet skiers; but was able to slip in to a vacant spot and get off the water in a pretty timely manner!

One comment I do have is how can they have a fishery on Lake Wenatchee every year which gets about a fifth of fish that Lake WA gets which is 5 times bigger and not open Lake WA for sockeye!! Just kills me but fingers crossed that next year will be the year!!

See you on the water!

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