Wow. Sometimes it’s all about being in the right place at the right time…

My friend Robbie and I launched out of the Sammamish Slough boat launch and ran down to fish off of Kirkland. I had a sleepless night going through different plans. How was I going to get us on fish? What would break the accursed Lake Washington Coho Lockjaw that so many anglers experience?

I brought twitching rods for hitting the slough (if we saw a bunch of fish activity downstream from the boat launch - we didn’t). I brought herring. I brought eggs. I would have brought the kitchen skin but it was cemented in. In the end, it was tried and true that did the trick for us – and boy did it ever!

We arrived off Moss Bay and dropped our lines at around 7:30am. I decided to start us off on what worked last week, large maglips. (see picture for the specific color). We ran our gear ten feet off the bottom, fishing 60 to 90 feet of water. Within minutes of dropping our gear it was “Fish On!” and Robbie brought to the back of the boat a beautiful chrome coho - which I promptly cracked off with the net. Are you kidding me??? What kind of amateur am I? Mortified that I had just lost the best and perhaps only fish we would see, I apologized profusely to Robbie. He graciously tried to take some of the blame, but I knew it was my own rush to get the first fish into the boat that caused it.

We lowed our gear back down and again, within minutes it was “Fish On!” And again, “Fish On!”, and again “Fish On!” Oh my God, our boat was on fire! The bite was hot and in no time at all we had three fish in the boat. Beautiful, chrome coho that must have just entered the system and were more than willing to hit our plugs. We were running at around 2.2-2.5 mph, and keeping gear 5-10 feet off the bottom. It was amazing. I would see a nice cluster of marks, alert Robbie “get ready, we’re passing over fish” and BAMM! Fish On!

OK, so we had lost one and caught three. Our last fish came as Robbie was bringing the gear up. Not ten feet from the boat a suicide coho slammed Robbie’s plug as he was retrieving it. Before you know it, we were punched out and it was 8:30am. Unbelievable!

Friends, this is why we go fishing. We know there will be days we fish all day and never see a bite, and then there will be days that will be etched into our memories forever. Days when limits come fast and easy. My wish is that all of you get to experience those amazing days along with the tough ones. This will be a Lake Washington Coho day I’ll never forget.