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Decided to give Lake Sammamish a try after reading some pretty positive reports on Cutthroat recently. We were on the lake by 9:00 AM. Would have been earlier, but took some time at the launch to de-ice! Was 24 degrees, so anything wet was well frozen. But it was a beautiful sunny day, with glass flat water so I wasn't complaining.
Headed up to the North end of the lake in a large "S" pattern to see if we could mark any fish. Nothing showed up on the sonar. Decided to fish the East side off Weber Point. Rod 1, Dick Nite Dodger in pink splash with Mack's wedding ring in pink, tipped with 2" of nightcrawler. Rod 2, Mack's double-d in hot pink, homemade wedding ring in red/green, tipped with PowerBait. Both rigs were scented using Mike's Glo Scent. It was about this point that I realized I'd left my downrigger weights at home. After I was done cursing myself, we opted to add a bit of weight to our setups to get down at least a bit.
30 minutes trolling this setup at 1.0 to 1.4 mph. Any faster and we were just about skipping off the surface (which had me cursing myself again).
Every 30 minutes, we'd move locations, switch up gear, try different scents...through the course of the day we tried a variety of dodgers, lures, bait, boat speed...nothing. Several times gear was brought back in with the bait gone, but not sure if it was fish being crafty, or just losing it.
Finally, about 30 feet off the active weather buoy, Rod 1 lights up and line starts stripping out. Fish on! Judging from the hit, and the payout, it was a nice one. I say "was" because moments later, she goes Air Trout on me about 2 feet out of the water, shakes her head, and spits the hook. I swear that fish was looking at me and laughing. Rod 1 at this point was a Dick Nite dodger in Copper Hot Orange Tractor Tread UV, Elgin God's Tooth lure Frog Pattern, tipped with nightcrawler and Mike's UV Trout Scent. Ran this same setup for a couple more passes around the weather buoy, but the only result was another large strike without a hookup.
And so it went. On the water at 9:00 AM, back to the dock at 3:00 PM. Great day on the water, but nothing to show for from a fish standpoint. Did see another boat land a fish (appeared to be a trout) about 100' off the buoy, but that was all we saw for the day.
Downriggers may have helped. Dunno. Maybe weather conditions were not optimal, and with glass flat water, the bite seems to slow down in general. On the good news side, it sure was a nice day to be on the water, and the boat ran like a champ.
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