I have been looking at Cooper the past few weekends and finally I saw a light wind day forecasted so I made the 1 hr 45 minute drive up there. FYI, though I only saw 3 cars on the road to the lake, it was a parking lot on I-90 afterwards. If I can, I try and go on only on a Saturday instead.

I’m about month earlier than last year which was my first ever trips to Cooper hoping to catch some Brown Trout. I managed 2 in 2018 out maybe 5 trips, but both were really nice fish in the teens size wise and both were caught in the top 2’ of water.

For 2019 I put a different set up into play as my normal sets only cover the top 8’ of water and I felt that I would have a better chance at catching Browns by going deeper than 8’ so I brought my GLoomis 8’5” UL Kokanee Rod and a Phisifun low Profile Baitcaster Reel that will hold 4 colors of lead core line plus some backing and mono. A super light set up and the way I like it to be! Here is how I set up the reel....put some 10lb Mono on first for some backing, maybe 10 yards or a bit more. Then I bought some 12lb Suffix 832 LC line. This line is suppose to go slightly deeper than the Tuff Stuff Micro Line. 8’ vs 6’ per color. Since I am always looking to go as light as possible, this was my best choice to get at least 4 colors on the reel and get down slightly deeper mainly for Lake Samammish. I then put about 10 yards of 10lb Mono to a swivel and then 4’ of Flourocarbon leader to a crank snap.

I was on the water at 5:45am and ran the LC set up and my top layer set up. The top layer was on fire for freshly planted RBT just using spoons, mainly a #2 Needlefish in Rainbow. The LC set up got a bunch of different lures but I was just catching RBT’s on it down 3 colors. Caught my 1st Brown using a Fire Tiger Hot Shot @ 4 colors. I switched over to my favorite Cutthroat lure, a #3 Needlefish in Metallic Perch and quickly started to pick up Browns while the spinning set up went dead once the sun hit the water.

I was working the shoreline across the launch and ended up with 7 Browns and a nice 15”er which another angler stopped to snap the pic. Very nice of him to stop fishing and make my day. I tried some other spoons, and different sizes, but the size 3 Needlefish was the best lure that I tried all day for Browns.

If you have a Brown fix and live in the West Side, game Cooper a shot. Pretty lake and super pretty fish!

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