Northwest Fishing Reports

I'm planning to fish Merwin this coming week. My first time chasing muskies this year. I made a couple of earlier trips to Banks Lake for smallies this season. September traditionally has been the best month for catching Merwin's tiger muskies, and there are fewer crowds, so it's my preferred time of year to fish there. I'm 71 now, it's getting harder to do this every year, and I probably don't have many fishing seasons left. Some of my September trips to Merwin in years past were truly magical. Someday I'll only have memories, but that time isn't here yet.

Good luck!

A brief report: My friend Mike and I fished Monday-Friday. Through Thursday, the weather was like July, clear and in the 80s, and there was quite a bit of boat traffic. Fishing was slow (but not fishless), with one 30-incher boated, and a couple of nice fish hooked and lost, and we watched another angler catch and release a nice fish. WDFW has increased stocking here over the last 4 years, to over 2,000 fingerlings a year, and as you would expect there are a lot of 30-to-36-inch fish in Merwin now. Then the weather changed on Friday to cool and rainy, and this brought the fish up from the depths onto the shorelines. We had the entire lake to ourselves, and at times the clouds were on the deck, and you couldn't see across the lake. The day started with a 40-inch-class fish hooked and lost on the first cast of the day, and the fast action continued throughout the day. This was classic Merwin September fishing as we experienced years ago. I lost count of how many fish I had on my line, somewhere between six and nine, but didn't land a single one of them. I don't know what the problem was, maybe too much line stretch to get good hooksets, but in any case they all managed to throw the hooks. We had one to the net, but the hooks got tangled in the net, and it twisted free. The entire day was like that, but it was fun. We also freed a couple of lures we thought were lost for sure. This lake is full of sunken stumps and logs, and when you work close to shore, you're bound to hang up a lot. Mike, who will be 77 next month, didn't fish as much as I did, because of a lame shoulder, but he also was losing fish. All told, we hooked and played somewhere around 12 to 15 fish, with 1 little one boated and released. We also had some follows and missed strikes.

Thanks for letting us know!

Don,
Merwin sounds like Curlew was a few years ago. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they would plant enough in Curlew also to make up for the heavy attrition being experienced due to mishandling by fishermen and purposeful mortality. 250/year doesn't cut it when only 4/100 plants make it to 40". That's only 10 per an annual plant at Curlew.
You might try setting your hooks like the fly fishermen do. Pull straight back on the line instead of bending your pole. I hooked a nice fish this year and gave him the bent pole hookset--he came half way in. No shake or jump or anything. Just suddenly nothing on the line. The second one I used the fly rod method and he was hooked up good in the net. If you lost that many, I'd try it.