Had another great day of weather at Merwin today. Netted 10 in the 12.5-15 in range trolling from 9 am -2 pm. Left a little later from Olympia to let the roads warm up a bit. Even then it was still an icy commute in spots and we drove by 4 pickups and 2 cars in the ditch just north of Kelso on I-5. At 8:30 am the Speelyai Bay parking lot was already almost full. When we left there were rigs in overflow parking. We weren't the only ones that capitalized on the great weather. But fortunately Merwin is a decent size reservoir and we never felt crowded launching, fishing or loading out.

We had a somewhat slow start, picking off one every 30 min on long lines, lost a few too.

Then we found a pattern that seemed to work fairly well. 24-29 ft, 1.1 mph, 85 ft setback from the ball. We also sent long lines back 188 ft with 3/4 oz weights. Both caught fish. Had 2 doubles and a triple.

Melissa's homemade wedding rings and a pink wiggle hoochie both caught fish. Didn't get a single hit while turning? They just really seemed to like 1.1 mph today.

Foggy morning blew off into a beautiful day with light to no winds. Surface water temp 40.

Finding fish this time of year is a challenge because our sonar sure wasn't picking up those shallow fish. Saw a few schools at 50-60 ft but our efforts at that depth produced nothing.

Good luck out there!

---