I always have a difficult time rating my experience on any one lake. Do you rate based on quantity or quality? Sometimes one good fish is all it takes to make the difference between "meh" and "hell yeah!". Today was one of those days. I awoke to sub-freezing temperatures after a night of freezing fog. I crept to the Speelyai launch in my trusted Subie with only a few slips here and there. After thawing my transducer I successfully launched and was fishing by 9:30 AM. The entire reservoir was my own except for a few loons and bufflehead. A vibrant sun burned overhead with little competition from thin cirrus clouds and with no wind the lake was a mirror.

I immediately hooked into several chinook smolts, some clipped and some unclipped, and with kid gloves returned them from where they came. I also found a few intermittent kokes <11" and also returned them in hopes of reconnecting with them in April with a few more inches. Around 11 AM my rod was slammed violently by a fish. Line went spooling off and I tightened the drag expecting a typical 15-17" rainbow which this lake typically produces but after several minutes I was greeted with 21.5" 4 lb rainbow! After some coaxing the fish was in the net and I was as happy as I can be (see the grin on my face in the video for evidence).

The wind started whipping up around 1 PM and I called it quits. Not my quantitatively most productive day on Merwin but not one I will soon forget.

Best Fishes to Everyone and To All A Good Fight! Tight Lines and Happy Holidays!

strider43

12/20/2013 6:54:00 AM

great video and fish! look like a great day on the water. Merry X-mas!

downriggeral

12/20/2013 10:17:00 PM

Nice fish, I am always amazed hoe you do this with the equipment you have. Hats off to ya!
Merry Christmas - Alan

Acefishon

12/21/2013 12:51:00 AM

Dude nice job on the fish ,but if u keep posting this on every fishing web site they won't be there for long.

hewesfisher

12/21/2013 6:33:00 AM

Awesome video and really like your choice of music to accompany it. Merry Christmas to you! :-)

afk

12/22/2013 7:48:00 AM

Sweet video! Thanks for sharing.

Mike Carey

12/22/2013 1:32:00 PM

Merwin fished out for kokanee... kinda doubt it. It's over 4,000 acres. Last year there were so many fish the limit was upped to 10 a day.

Ilive2fish

12/26/2013 7:39:00 PM

looks like an excellent adventure...too cool!
I hope my trip to merwin this weekend is as great as yours was.

Bony1

12/9/2014 7:52:00 PM

Looks like you had a great time. I'm planning on fishing there on new years weekend out of my pa-14.
How far out of the launch were you?
Tom

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