So with my wife out of town for the weekend I had another opportunity for me to hit the water again today but needed to stay closer to home as we had some construction people coming by to fill in the dirt for the foundation for our home project going on, so chose just to fish the sound end solo today. Got to Coulon around 6:30 and headed straight across to the mouth of the Cedar to start my troll north towards the south tip of Mercer.

I noticed the kicker motor was struggling to start and when I went to pump the prime, saw that my gas tank was shrunk up! Forgot to open the vent valve so had run the boat yesterday without it being vented- as soon as I released the pressure it started it up but was smoking and sputtering- started my troll but 5 minutes into it the motor died! Crap! Pulled in my line and with the motor tilted up pulled off the cover to check things out- first thought was fouled plugs so got out my tools and sure enough, both plugs were black as coal and nothing much left of them. Fortunately I had 2 spares in the tool box so put those in and lowered her back down and Whoosh! Started right up and was purring like a kitten!

Disaster averted now it's back to fishing! With a renewed spirit I thought this would be a good time to try out my new toy I had got at Cabela's with my club discount and points- a fish hawk temp gauge thermometer! Hooked it up to the down rigger and deployed it down to the bottom 100 feet. When I brought it back up saw that from the surface to about 40 feet it stayed at 65 degrees but then for every 10 or 20 feet progressively got colder to the point it was 43 degrees on the bottom. So chose to fish the 55 to 75 range today to see if this thing was worth it's weight in gold as this seemed to be the optimum range between 55 and 60 degrees.

Started out with what has been working for me in the past but soon realized that with the change in temps and season, it was time to switch it up a bit. So I went with what worked yesterday but a smaller flasher as all I was targeting today was cutts so set the line back 50 feet back and 55 feet down. Nothing! Now remembering that I was not fishing as deep as yesterday let the line out 100 feet behind the boat and dropped to 65 feet and WHAM!! Fish on!! Got it in but realized it was a chinook and nice sized too!! Probably would have been one I would have measured in the salt to see if I could keep it or not haha but since that is not an option released it back into the wild!

Next up was a smaller cutty but great fighter and was bleeding badly so kept it as well as the next one! Soon saw another boat out by the west side of Mercer (BTW since I was marking tons of fish in this area did not go anywhere else- the old adage " don't leave fish to find fish")
and just as he passed behind me I thought my line may have got caught on his down rigger as it pulled off the clip and was pulling drag. But when I saw him turn out and my line going to shore realized it was a bigger fish! Cool! Soon got it in the net and was a respectable 19"er so bonked this one to make a harvest for the smoker in the near future.

Set my line back down and was heading south as I wanted to get back to the launch by noon so just as I was passing the point of the island the rod buries down and starts screaming! It's either a huge cutthroat or some sort of salmon as this guy runs out to about 200 feet before I can start to get it back towards the boat. As it got close was surprised to see it was another fire truck sockeye probably pushing 7 lbs and full of life as wanted nothing to do with my boat. Finally was able to get into the net and after quickly removing hooks shot it back in and it swam off hopefully to fertilize some female waiting with eggs!

So not a bad day again with totals:
3- cutthroat kept
1- chinook released
1- sockeye released.

and a boat motor that runs !! Now to pick up a couple more spark plugs at Oreilly's! See you on the water!!