I read all of the reports on fishing Lake Sammamish recently and decided to go out and give it a try. I have fished the lake for the past six years or so, and exclusively use fly fishing rods, reels and flies. I appreciate all of the reports that many of you have posted, many of them were really helpful. Even though most of the folks fishing the lake are using gear instead of fly fishing equipment, I still gained a lot from reading your posts.

I was using a six weight rod, with a full sinking line. I used an olive/white clouser minnow, and trolled the fly from my boat using the electric trolling motor. I varied my speed between 1 and 1.5 mph. I had read a number of reports of people catching hatchery coho and was surprised by this. I assume these coho are coming from the Issaquah Fish Hatchery? I did not know that they released coho from the hatchery, I thought it was exclusively chinook salmon that they released? How long have they been releasing coho into the lake?

I decided to run up near Weber Point after reading some of the reports. Very little bug activity up there, and I was only marking a few fish on the fish finder but I decided to troll around for awhile anyway. I was surprised when my rod starting bending and found I was hooked up with a strong fish. This fish fought much better than the cutthroat I was more used to catching.

My pictures are not the best, but this was a wild fish, not fin clipped. If this was a salmon, why would it not have had its adipose fin clipped? Only thing I wondered is if I am wrong about the fish and it was a rainbow? Pretty sure it was either a coho or a chinook, and after taking a couple of pictures I let it go. If you can tell what h it is, please let me know.

Three or four other good hits that afternoon, but not able to hook up with any other fish.