If you're going up the Lewis to the Reservoirs - skip Merwin. Second time spending the better part of a day with NO bites... maybe they're down on the west end of the lake, but they're NOWHERE near Speelyai. I'm fairly certain it wasn't just us, either.

With that said - We absolutely destroyed Yale on Friday eve, Saturday, and Sunday morning! Saturday, out all day, we were able to catch our limit of 16 Kokanee each - 32 Koks in the boat. Incredible action, especially starting out with an entire morning/afternoon of garbage fishing at Merwin. It shows just how important finding the fish is! We had the right combination, it seemed, as others were catching, but for some reason weren't quite onto them like we were.

Fun weekend of fishing we won't forget.

Sideburns

5/22/2018 2:14:34 PM

Yeah merwin is a long drive for me if we might not be able to find fish. I've never thought about how easily we could switch to Yale as a back up. I've had a good time at merwin in the past, but the water flow through the reservoir can sure stop the bite instantly. Ive been following the "merwin 2018" thread from another unmentioned site and reports were slow for quite a while. Looks like things are starting to heat up again at merwin last couple days. How big are the fish at yale this year? Thanks for the report.

chiwawadan

5/22/2018 3:02:18 PM

11-14 inches were the sizes we were getting. I had always heard folks would fish Merwin to 10 fish then head to Yale to get to the 16 limit, due to the fishing being better and fish being larger at Merwin, while Yale contained smaller Koks. That was the story I'd always heard. Can't say I subscribe to that thinking after last weekend! If you're launching at Speelyai, it's probably only 5 minutes drive to Saddle Dam at Yale and it's about 16 minutes to the east end of the lake at Beaver Bay. So, really no big deal to hit either lake if one isn't working for you.

Cokanee

5/22/2018 7:55:34 PM

Where did you launch at Yale ? Which end did you fish? No secret spots, just point me in a direction

chiwawadan

5/23/2018 3:55:50 PM

We launched the far east end - Beaver Bay. I will say... there were a load of boats mid-lake at Yale Park. But, we were on the east end.

Rocketvet

5/23/2018 8:22:09 AM

We fished last Friday at Merwin and were getting skunked with only Pikeminnow landed. Admittedly we got a late start and that is not good at Merwin. So we too headed to Yale and were successful as well. Reports are starting to look up at Merwin and soon they will be heading deeper and schooling up. The fish quality at Merwin is definitely better ( fatter, longer) but if you want numbers then Yale is the ticket.

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