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Washington Lake Report
King County, WA

Details

12/16/2018
46° - 50°
Trolling
Cutthroat Trout
Worms
Cloudy
Morning
12/17/2018
3
3177

Sometimes the best made plans still fall apart...

I set up a Saturday trip with Paul Lewis of Fast Action Guide Service, Randy R, and Robbie from the site. The plan was to spend the day fishing Lake Washington for winter cutthroat. The weather had been iffy but as luck would have it, the forecast called for a nice day following a Friday wind storm, and then back to rain on Sunday. Kinda like a day of fishing the eye of the hurricane, so to speak.

Friday evening the wind was howling but come morning it had laid down nicely. We launched my boat out of the Newport Boat Launch and ran to the south end of Mercer Island. A perfect day!

We ran two riggers, a long line, and a planer board. Old Goat Lures, Arctic Fox flies, and a generic wedding ring, tipped the gear with a chunk of worm. We started marking fish pretty quickly in the 10-30 foot range, and in little time at all brought in the first cutt of the morning, a nice 14" chromer 20 feet deep on the rigger. Shortly after that another fish off the long line that came off just shy of the net.

Then... the call. My wife called to inform me that we had lost sections of our backyard fence to the evening wind storm. The fence had to be fixed because we have dogs that come and go into the back yard. So with that news, I apologized to my guests and turned the boat back to the launch.

Thankfully my friend Robbie hung around at my house and gave me some ideas to make the repairs. My son James came over and the rest of the day was spend fixing the fence. Not as much fun as fishing, but hey, the fish will be there another day!


Comments

salmonbarry
12/18/2018 6:04:52 PM
Sorry to hear that Mike! Yea same story at our house as I got home from work and opened the gate the fence nearly fell over so secured with extra anchor ropes from the garage to nearby trees and just in time as that night it blew like a banshee! Sorry to hear about the shortened trip but hope you can make it out again soon! Merry Christmas!
9TenMan
12/18/2018 7:55:16 PM
Thanks for the post Mike. I haven't been seeing many reports from Lake Washington lately compared to previous years. I was wondering if you have any tips for how you keep all those lines from getting tangled while you're trolling. I run two down riggers with fully extended arms off both sides and a third rod right off the back over the main motor with a dipsy diver and I can't seem to keep the middle line from tangling with one of the rigger lines. Is your "long line" just a line with a banana weight on it? Wondering if my dipsy diver is not running true. Thanks for the help.
FastActionGS
12/18/2018 9:20:20 PM
9TenMan, our longline was a lead core line. that is my go to for fishing long lines over banana weights, but is all just a preference thing. with lead core, I can be a little more accurate with my depth, but you can be just as accurate if you learn banana weights.

sorry to hear about your tangle issues. i run our of a 16 foot boat, and the most we have fished is 4 rods and had no problem. I may recommend slowing down how hard you turn, stagger your depths, and maybe use a diver that doesnt dive as deep. lead core is great because it sinks about 6 feet every 30 feet of line at trout trolling speed, keeping that live further away. the main tangle will be because of sharp turns is my guess.

give me a call at (425)-753-5772 and Id be happy to talk to you about some other reasons or potential fixes to the problem.

tight lines brotha!
rmrauscher
12/18/2018 8:02:26 PM
Hey Mike, it was short and sweet. Had a good time and it was great fish with you, Robbie and Paul. After you left, Paul and I came back down in my boat. Fishing wasnt smokin hot but we did manage a real nice 18+ incher.
FastActionGS
12/18/2018 9:13:31 PM
randy couldn't have said it better. was an absolute blast, and 2 fish in one hour on Lake Washington is pretty good action all things considered, especially because we were just on our first spot! glad everything is ok, looking forward to getting back out there with you.
FastActionGS
12/18/2018 9:20:32 PM
randy couldn't have said it better. was an absolute blast, and 2 fish in one hour on Lake Washington is pretty good action all things considered, especially because we were just on our first spot! glad everything is ok, looking forward to getting back out there with you.
strikezone
12/20/2018 10:20:35 AM
Mike--Thanks fort a nice report. I was wondering if you could head me in the right direction to find some gold crush tape to use on my wobbler lure when I am Kokanee fishing. Thank you.
Denny
Mike Carey
12/21/2018 6:54:16 AM
E-Bay can be a pretty good source for finding tape
Mike Carey
12/21/2018 6:55:13 AM
Well the fence held up to Wind Storm Two so we must have done a reasonably good job!
strikezone
12/23/2018 2:14:28 PM
Thanks for the hint on where to look for tape Mike. I was successfull
Mike Carey
12/23/2018 3:39:27 PM
great!
strikezone
12/23/2018 6:06:07 PM
Thanks for the hint on where to look for tape Mike. I was successfull
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Available Guide

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

Phone: (509) 687-0709