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Sammamish Lake Report
King County, WA

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Details

01/12/2019
51° - 55°
Fly Fishing
Salmon
None
Olive
Sunny
Fly Rod
Afternoon
46° - 50°
01/13/2019
3
2301

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.


Comments

JoshH
1/14/2019 10:17:30 AM
The fish in your pictures is a juvenile chinook.
mizefish
1/14/2019 10:48:04 AM
Broken spots on the back, dark mouth (what we can see of it anyway), and jaw extends well past the eye...without seeing the tail I think you can't eliminate the possibility that it's a young chinook.
PatrickC
1/14/2019 5:53:53 PM
It’s a beautiful fish. Great catch!
fivefish
1/14/2019 9:43:12 PM
Plenty of salmon spawn in the creek. It's nice when you find the results of that.
FishingTenor
1/14/2019 10:47:45 PM
How big was your chinook?
FishingTenor
1/14/2019 10:54:01 PM
I am pretty sure the Issaquah hatchery releases chinook and coho every year. I am surprised that the salmon have waited so long to set up residency in the lake. It has been my log time belief that local Kokanee were a result of many years of sockeye release into Issaquah creek. Not sure when they stopped this, but note the severely declining Kokanee population in Sammamish.
sebastes
1/16/2019 5:52:24 PM
The Issaquah Hatchery Egg take goal this year was 2.26 million chinook eggs and 247,000 coho eggs. Typically they are released in April/May.

I work on kokanee recovery in Lake Sammamish so I thought I would share some of the history of the fishery that I have collected.

Historically, we have found there were three distinct kokanee runs in the Lake Sammamish/Washington Watershed: Early (Issaquah Creek), Middle (Lake Washington and Sammamish River), and Lake (tribs of Lake Sammamish). From the historical records we have dug up, prior to the cutting of balard ship canal and rerouting of the Cedar River (early 1900's) there were very few reports of coho or chinook in the system. The watershed was dominated by kokanee (landlocked sockeye) and Cutthroat. The fish population in the watershed has changed quite a bit with the introduction of chinook, coho, bass, perch, and a number of other species.
As for the status of the original kokanee runs...Unfortunately, the early kokanee run in issaquah creek were extirpated due to a belief that they carried disease which could harm the more valuable coho and chinook at the hatchery. The middle run may have either gone extinct or hybridized with planted baker lake sockeye. The "late" run is the last remaining native population of kokanee we have in the lake.

If you have more interest in kokanee restoration efforts in Lake Sammamish, i'm happy to share.
Dave
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

Phone: (509) 687-0709