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I don’t think that the Seattle area has ever experienced such a long period of lingering fog like we have had the past week or so. I left for the launch around my usual time as the sun was beginning to break through the fog up at the house. Arriving at the lake, I could tell that it was going to be a while before I saw any sun on the water today. I ran up to the north side of Mercer and fished the I-90 area for most of the day. As it was gloomy, I went with glow lures today, an Army truck mini Apex and a double glow mini hoochie. I had fairly consistent action, but it was not what I was expecting. The first two fish to the boat were coho and came on the hoochie, so it was swapped out in favor of the Apex. I brought 6 more fish to the boat with the Apex, 4 being kokanee and 2 more coho. I finished out the day pounding the bottom around Luther Burbank park and picked up a small, 14” cutt, for my efforts. Once the sun broke on the water the bite picked up a bit but did not seem to drive the fish deeper in the water column. All the fish I caught today came between 25’ and 40’ down. I attached a pic of a coho which needed to be brought aboard and untangled. Give me grief if you want for doing so, but it worked out better for the fish this way and I think may help others to ID them. Now the size of these coho were such that they may become residents, all of them were in the 12” to 15” range, a little big I think for fish that will eventually migrate to the salt. With any luck we can legally pick them up come fall when the north section of the lake opens up for them. Bait seems to be plentiful this winter so I’m hopeful that we will see some healthy sized cutts come spring and summer.

docshane

1/21/2013 8:47:00 AM

Thanks for the post G-man. Great info on the coho. I know sammamish gets some coho too, although I don't think I've ever caught one in there, but the pic definitely helps. Especially since the jawline on that coho looks similar to a cutthroat (or is it just me). It's been since december 16th that I haven't fished, ACL/meniscus surgery, but I love reading everybody's reports, keep posting them because it gives me hope that I'll be out there again soon.

G-Man

1/21/2013 10:37:00 AM

Yes, the jaw is a bit more pronounced on coho and chinook than on sockeye, the better to eat other fish with! However, the first thing I notice when one of these make it to the boat is the spotting and color of the back along with the bright silver sides. Similar to trout, they have black spots and a greenish color instead of the the kokanee's bluish tint and lack of spots. The other give aways are a missing adipose fin, a mouth full of sharp teeth, silver in the tail and the eye color. The missing adipose fin isn't a 100% indicator as there are silvers and kings that spawn naturally in the system. Just know that a fish missing its fin in the Lake Washington system, is a salmon from the Issaquah hatchery.

bryanpeck

1/21/2013 10:43:00 AM

Thanks for the post G-Man! Informative as usual.

Tesla

1/21/2013 1:36:00 PM

Thanks G-man. Good info on everything, as usual. The bait has been thick in that area this year and the cutts have been healthy and I'm with you it should be a good spring. Back in mid-November I caught a fish similar to that one in Sammamish, it went right back, but I thought it was a very odd looking koke and a thick 17" fish. It makes sense that it might have been a Coho.

FishingFool

1/21/2013 9:34:00 PM

So that's a coho. If I caught that, I would have thought it was a kokanee, with my nooby eyes.

reelinanrockin

1/22/2013 3:13:00 PM

Those hybrid apex and pro troll lures are great. I like the fish arches in the ten to twenty ft range on your screen. Fish feeding tend to feed up. What you might think is bait balls on your screen could always be juvenile salmon or trout not necessarily stickle backs or long fin smelt which the bigger size cuts go after. Most all of the smaller fish ( trout and salmons) in the lake have myopic shrimp in their stomach. The smaller cuts might not be big enough to catch a stickleback or smelt so they eat the shrimp. I wish we knew a way to find the shrimp in the water and catch a few more kokes out there. And I wish I new a way to find the stickle back out there. All the bigg cuts I caught had stickle back in their guts. So I just see stuff on the screen and put my rig down to the depth they are and troll around. And trust to educated dumb luck on what I catch.

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