I'm not exactly sure how to rate this report as I did catch fish and get a few bites, but my overall limited success was probably due to ignorance. This was my first attempt at Lake WA Coho.

After years of "thinking" about it, I finally decided to go give this fishery a try. Of course it was a last minute decision, so I was throwing stuff together the night before trying to figure out what to take. Thanks to Mike Carey and the various historical forum posts from other members to help point me in the right direction.

I intended to launch in Kirkland at the marina, but when I got there I was unsure of the parking, so drove a bit south to one of the smaller parks. I spent a good 45 minutes on the shore making sure the kayak and rods were prepped before I actually shoved off, so by that time my intended 6a launch was now 6:45. I did not see many boats out in front of the park, but did see a number south towards Carillon Pt. I'd made a make shift mount for my little down rigger, so headed straight out to 100' and dropped the DR with a Maglip down to 90' and started trolling south. A couple boats had come along side headed the same way, so I matched their speed and paralleled their course. One of them hooked up shortly after. I thought it was a good sign. However, by the time we got to the boats all clustered up south of us I'd not had a hit nor marked anything on the sonar.

I decided to change tactics and try jigging. I was starting to see arches on the sonar in 60' of water. I tied on a 3" white/metalic pink Buzz Bomb and dropped it to the bottom. There was hardly any breeze, so it was easy to maintain contact with the bottom. I watched a couple of fish hooked by the guys jigging. All of the sudden I got a take and hooked my first Lake WA Coho. Glad I had a net and bonked a bright 5 lb hen. Went back to fishing and missed three more fish. Had two of those on briefly, but didn't get good hook sets, so not surprised they spit the hook. The other boats seemed to be doing a bit better than I was and I was still seeing the trollers hook one now and again around us. For jigging this is definitely a sonar game as the fish would be thick and then just disappear. Then you'd have to pick up and go searching for them again. Quite fun when they were plentiful. It was nearly 8a and after 8a the bite just seemed to die and the fish seemed to get harder to locate.

People started packing it in and the boats disappeared too. I was still running into fish on the sonar, so tried trolling again and jigging when it seemed feasible. I had one hit trolling a maglip, but didn't pop the DR or get any more hits after that. I stuck it out till 11:30 without any more luck.

I hope to try it again with my new found knowledge.

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