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Website: Washington Guide Services

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Washington Lake Report
King County, WA

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12/17/2014
46° - 50°
Top Fishing From Boat
Perch
Cloudy
Noon
46° - 50°
12/17/2014
5
1826

If you have a chance and like to eat perch hit the south end of Mercer Island. Start about 3/4 mile from SeaHawk's training facility and motor toward Mercer Is bridge. Stick to the middle channel of the lake in this area between 65 to 70 ft. There is no lack of fish and they are carpeting the bottom. If you have a good fish finder you will see them although there were many times we caught them with nothing showing on the finder. The size in not like in past yeaar and my partner and I caught well over 100 sorting out the smaller ones to keep only the 9 to 10 inch size. We did catch 4 jumbos from 11 to 12 inches. We drop shot with 1oz Point Wilson Dart lure for bottom lure and bait hooks with perch meat. Electric knife really speeds up cleaning these guys. A lot of the fish we threw back couldn't go back down and we fed 3 eagles that kept flying circles around the boat.


Comments

FishingTenor
12/17/2014 11:23:00 PM
Over 100!? That is crazy how many perch are still in the larger lakes around here. When I was a kid, we used to hook a perch nearly every cast off the dock on Sammamish. It sounds like you are doing that now also. What is the limit on perch?
slabman
12/18/2014 6:34:00 AM
No limit and they need to be thinned. We started fishing this year later than usual (in November, but usually the perch migrate from the weed area to deeper water in Oct) and drifted over schools that were over 15 ft thick and 1/4 mile long. These fish stack up in 30 to 35 ft of water and as it gets colder migrate to deeper water and get tighter to the bottom. As I stated, right now they are in the 65 ft range and will go down from there.Hence, a good finder is a great tool to be able to find them.

The only problem (if you want to call it that) is that the fish are a lot smaller for average kept then is past years. Also, we are not seeing the bait balls with these fish as we did in the past and lack of feed is probably the reason for lack of size. Very few of the fish spit out bait (which look like white smelt) as we bring them to the boat. In the past a lot of the fish kicked out bait and we saw these huge bait balls on top of the perch schools. These fish are fantastic eating so we have to work harder for the poundage.
lohans4
12/18/2014 10:55:00 AM
Best tasting fish around even though the smaller ones are tougher to fillet. I'm envious and am heading to the freezer to thaw out my last package for a fish fry this P.M. We got some jumbo perch at the Potholes this fall and I'm looking forward to more when I can get back.
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Washington Guide Services

Phone: (509) 881-9052