Took a trip up to Lake Goodwin to check it out for future trips with
the kids. The State Park looks good, launch is good, and it looks
like we could combine fishing and tubing there this summer.

I got there around 8AM, and a couple of guys were already leaving,
probably with limits. Most folks were trolling in the deeper water
at the South end of the lake, so I joined in. Best seemed to be right
out from the docks on the East side. WDFW has put a lot of fish in
this lake. On my depth sounder, it looked like a continual cloud. The
guys with their lake boats gave me a couple of weird looks as I went
by in my Arima with its hard top, antennas and downriggers.

I don't know much about trout trolling, so I just put on my normal
kokanee gear, a red wedding ring spinner behind a 4/0 dodger. Fished
this on the downrigger between 15 and 20 feet down, with a string of
spinners on the downrigger ball, 5 feet below my gear. I got a hit
every 5 to 10 minutes. Caught 8 or 9 small trout from 7 to 11 inches
long in a pass or two along the East side. I let them all go.

Hoping for something bigger or different, I dropped the gear down to
30 feet and headed towards the West side. Trolling along the West
side, my gear was almost hitting the bottom. At one point, I was
messing with something by my fish box when I noticed a large trout
jump right next to my boat. On further study, it looked like it had
a wedding ring spinner in it's mouth. I looked around. There were
no other boats nearby. You know, that sure looks like my dodger too.
At this point I finally looked at my ultra light trout pole and saw it
was straight up. I grabbed it and reeled in slack just in time to
hang on as the fish took a long run. The fish took two more runs
before tiring out and swimming near the boat. It went between the
boat and the cable a couple times, but I managed to whip the pole
through the gap and save it before the line cut. I looked at my
trout net, and figured it wasn't going to be big enough. I reached
up into the hard top and got out my salmon net. It took me a couple
of tries to extend the handle using one hand and my feet. The pole
was light enough that I couldn't really control the fish, so I just
got it near the boat, lowered the net way in the water and slowly
moved it under the fish and up. The fish went 3 pounds, 7 ounces,
which I believe is my biggest trout ever. It had nice pink meat and
tasted great smoked.

A great day. I'll be back with the kids!

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