Northwest Fishing Reports

June 30 fished Lake Merwin for fifth time this season. Beautiful day, overcast in morning with light wind from the west. Clouds burned off about noon and in the 70's rest of day. Fished from about 7:30 am to 2 pm. One fish in boat. Caught two white fish. Same story all season so far. Marked fish from 35 to 70 feet. Fished with down riggers deep, shallow, mid column. Assortment of flashers(sling blade, Mac's, Ford Fender), hoochie, wiggle hoochie, wedding ring. Varied colors on flashers and tackle. Bite was soft and not until after sun came out. Merwin witch is usually good has been spotty all season. Will move to Yale which reports better catch rate.

I'm with ya! I was not happy with the decision to move the limit in this lake to 10. My fear was it would really degrade the fishing. One year is a little early for me to blame it all on the limit change but it certainly does not look favorable at this point. I hope I'm wrong and the fishing turns around but I'm in no rush to get up there and fish.

I hope Yale works out for you. Hitting Yale is in my plans as well but just haven't found the time lately.

Hmmm. Well I don't claim to know it all and I could be mistaken. I've only been fishing Merwin since 2007 and last year (it could have been 2 years ago) was the first time I recall being able to keep 10 fish. Prior to that I'm pretty confident it was only a 5 fish limit because I remember debating is it worth the gas to catch five fish when I made solo trips up there.

The change was made in 2013. In 12 it was statewide min size and limits.

I have thought the same thing for the last two years, as three years ago was off the hook. The one thing I think could be the major cause is opening the lake year round. Even after the 10 fish limit it was good the next two years but I see a difference after the year-round season, lots of small fish when the majority used to be full size. Last years lack of winter and nice weather had a lot of fishing done earlier in year (Jan, Feb) than before, with a lot of small fish limits. I'm not the grumpy old man (get off my yard!), just some observations. I still like fishing it and it may come back next year.

One of the unique aspects of kokanee fishing is that for some reason the vast majority of the fish that bite our hooks are fish that will spawn this year. On most waters typically more than 90% of the fish are maturing fish. That means that a lack of fish early in the season is not from the harvest of immature kokanee but rather some other conditions.

What one would expect on a kokanee fishery if the rising the limit has a impact on the kokanee fish what we would see more or less "normal" fishing during the early couple of months and as the numbers are thinned out the catch rates would drop. That does not appear to be the case on Merwin. From all reports the fishing start of slower than normal from the early part of the season with fishing improving recently. Rather then the limit change suspect the poorer fishing this year may have more to do with the lake conditions this winter and spring - high turbid water.

Curt