This morning I decided to head out to Meridian. It's been two years since I made a trip to this lake. Two years ago this was my go to place for decent sized 13-15 Kokanee. I left the house this morning at about quarter to 6 and realized it was already first light (Haven't been up early lately). I arrived at the lake at 7:00 and found that the launch ramp/parking lot was closed. I guess they are rebuilding the swimming dock and using the main ramp to run supplies back and fourth. The guy told me there was a beach ramp access a couple hundred feet up the road. I decided to give that a go, and boy, it's shallow. I was able to get my boat off the trailer, but had to get wet to do it. Note there is only room for about three rigs in that spot so if you decide to go you better go earlier or wait till this weekend. I started with trolling and set the downrigger rods at 25 and 30 feet. I was trolling for about 5 minutes and the 25 ft rod starts bouncing, fish on the pink hoochie. I ended up catching about a 13 inch rainbow and put it in the box being it was the first fish of the day. I got the rod back in the water, then the 30 ft rod goes off and it's another trout on a blue RGT tube. I release it as I was hunting for Kokanee. I decided to swap out the RGT with a pink nerka bug as that was my go to lure two years ago. I ended up putting it down to 33 and I took the pink hoochie down to 30 ft. A few minutes later the hoochie rod tries to go tips up, but just doubles over and line was peeling off the reel. The fight was on and it was the biggest kokanee I have bagged out of Meridian, 18.5 inches. I was think this is going to be a great day. I trolled for another twenty minutes and the nerka bug rod goes off, it ended up being another nice trout that I turned back in hopes of catch three more Kokanee. Unfortunately the bite just shut off at 9:30. I then went into search mode changing the depth form 25 to 50. I put the RGT back on and sent it to 50 ft and hooked another fat kokanee. This fish could have been twins with the one in the box, but it came unbuttoned just short of the net. I ended up hitting 7 trout and hooking the two Kokanee. I left with two fish in the box, but I plan on going back if the kokanee are this big. I think it's worth a few more earlier morning trips to seek them out.

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