Out @ 8:00, limited by 9:30. Talk about your fast and furious, almost couldn't go wrong, except I lost the biggest sockeye I've ever hooked into.

Also hooked into a tagged fish so it looks like a trip down to Outdoor to put in for the drawing. Kinda seemed lite on the boat traffic today but was thick where people saw fish come up at. Just wish I had a place on the south end of Mecer so I wouldn't have to go to far to fish.

Robert

Here's my report:

We anchored at Seward Park yesterday evening and really enjoyed getting out of the heat. Swam and had a good time with my son James, my friend Tom, and his daughter Elizabeth.

This morning we hit the trolling lane at 5am. Worked our way due south from Seward Park along the west side of the lake. We fished from 65 to 90 feet deep running three lines. I had read the Times article which stated the south tip of Mercer Island was expected to be good so I knew that was the last place I wanted to be! Sure enough, that area was jammed with boats. We had smooth trolling with very little boats in our way.

The fishing was very good. This time we had all tandom tied hooks. The hot color was fluorescent pink. The fish were bigger than last week as well. We caught some great 6-7 pound bucks and hens. What a difference a couple pounds make - these fish fought and took some good runs. Our boat was limited by 9am. I spoke with a friend who was over by the southern Mercer Island tip and he said it was slow over there.

One item of interest - all the fish came from the electric downrigger. We had no hits on the manual. This includes last week. That means approx. 24 hits all on one side of the boat and none on the other. We had the same depths, same rigs. The manual rigger had a triangle type attractor which was blue/green glow and the clip was three feet behind that. I have no idea if that was the problem but it sure was strange. Maybe an electirc charge on the rigger cable? very curious indeed.

All in all a perfect two days of sockeye fishing for us this year!

A four fish limit by 10:00 am and 2 more by 12:30 with another buddy.

Mike - I had a similar experience last week and today. In the last two weeks my boat has had 15 sockeye and all but one came off the same rod. Even with the passenger side rod fishing the exact same setup at the same depth, the rod would not catch fish. The only fish on the passenger side came when we had a double.
Weird.

Lets see, neighbor of mine hooked me up with his dad that had a slip right next to Ranier. Got down there yesterday at 6pm and was moored by 7:30pm. Showed up at 3:30am this morning to find out I forgot my fishing license . Thank god to have a cop in the family high tailed from ranier back to Covington, woke the ol'lady up, got my license, back and fishing before 4:45 . Had six people in the boat and all limited by 8am. But the first hour was pretty frustrating, lost about 9 fish and lost a whole set up, ahhh . But was all good was able to get my 8 year old nephew in to his first Salmon, Sockeye to beat it. I'm with you Mike C, our fish we banged where all thicker fish than last week. Even got two fresh ones, couldn't have been a day in the lake. Good to be off the lake early.

ErnDog

Were you catching the fish on the kicker side or not?

Glad to return the favor from last week Dog! We also had a great day started at 5 and my 4 year old and I where done before 6 then the Cracker Queen and a PSA buddy where done by 7:15 then home for breakfast

My mom and I went out again - and each caught our first sockeye:





As you can see from the picture, my mom did not want to touch it as it was too slimy, still twitching and the deflating air bladder made a crying noise - freaked her out! Right after she caught it, her mind-set changed from enjoying the scenery to wanting to catch more.

We launched and fished just south of I-90 on the west side of Mercer - not many boats at all. The first one was landed around 6:30 and the second around 9:30.

I want to thank everyone for their advice - both fish were caught off of a canon mini-troll refurb dr I just picked up (never fished with a dr before this). I also want to thank Sky-Guy for the advice on fish finders and battery drain - I ended up getting a portable one that runs off of 'C' batteries that I can use off docks and elsewhere too. Finally - thank you FishNPhysician for your fillet method - it saves and lot of meat and is a heck of a lot easier.

--Bank Angler

JimH:

no fish caught on the kicker side of the boat - why do you ask that question?

I'm thinking back on previous sockeye trips and I seem to recall it was always one rod that had the most action, even with identical setups. Although I do remember doubles (we had a couple today). It's just a very perplexing phenomenom the last two trips.

Sky Guy: do you have any theories? Was your "hot rod" on an electric rigger? Opsite side of the kicker? Maybe we can find a similarity in our rod setups.

Mainly I was curious. I've heard some fish especially coho are attracted to the prop wash and some trout are not.

Mike, Jim, Sky:

I experienced a couple hot rods both sockeye days - the same two rods both weekends. Six fish last week. Eight fish yesterday. All fourteen hit the same two rods out of four deployed. These two rods had different dodgers and leader lengths (one a prism dodger with a 16" leader to a 6/0 red owner, the other a hammered dodger with an 11" leader, same hook). Yesterday those rods were on the electric riggers (thankfully) which each had pop gear on the dr ball, but last week the hottest rod was on the manual rigger, which had nothing extra on the ball. The two rods are spooled with different test and color line, and I just can not put my finger on why those rods would be hotter.

My report: launched Friday night and spent the night with the wife (no kids) in Andrews Bay. Spectacular evening! Picked up the kids and a friend at the dock at 6, fishing S end of MI, by Rainier Beach by 6:30. Trolled for an hour with no hits, then the bite turned on at 7:30. Steady action with only one lost fish. We should have lost at least two others, with tangled lines, a fishing line in the dr spool, and a couple of elaborate ballets to weave fish through three other lines. Ended up with eight fish for five anglers by 9:30 when it slowed down a bit. The kids got bored, so we cranked them up and went tubing and swimming.

Talked to a few others who had zero fish. It seems like either you have the sockeye dialed in or you DON'T.

My daughter and I spent the night moored off of Clark Park on the Southeast end of MI. At about 3:30 I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep so I headed out to look and see if I could locate a school of fish. Around 4:15 Delbert called me as we had agreed and instead of having him go to Coulon I asked him to head over to Newport Shores for a pickup. After picking him up we headed for the southend of MI to start fishing. I had marked a small school earlier in the channel in front of the MI Beach club so we dropped the lines there and worked our way to the drop off just south of the island. We didn't get any action, nor did we see any so we decided to head over to the west side of the lake along the ridge in 100+ feet of water. Delbert dropped his line down and then I put the other line down to 87'. 2 minutes later we had our first hit! I got the fish up to the surface and promply lost it with the dodger and hook flying up in our face. We dropped back down to 85+ feet and stayed there the rest of the day. In all we hooked 15 fish and by 8:00 am we had our limit of 6 fish. Delbert got a nice one that was probably close to 8lbs Jamy and I got 2 that were about 6.5 and 7. And the others were between 3 and 5lbs. All in all a very good day!

All but 2 fish were on 1 rod. They both had the same setup and were fished at similar depths. The only thing really different were the line and how far back from the ball they were. Delbert was only going about 20' behind the ball and Jamy and I would go about 60' behind the ball. We only put 2 lines down as I just didn't feel like hassling with 2 lines on 1 downrigger. The last 3 fish all came within 10 minutes of each other. Jamy got her second fish and I put the line back down. Just after putting the line down we did a turn to head back over the school and it hit again. After putting that fish in the box I commented that since all but 1 fish were on that rod we should bring up Delberts rod and put ours back down. Since Delbert was busy bleeding the fish for me Jamy popped his rod off the clip and started to bring it in. After a couple cranks on the rod she got slammed and set the hook. Delbert popped my fish in the box and grabbed his rod from Jamy. We boated that fish and called it quits for the day with a full cooler.

I would like to thank Delbert for his fish handling and company. We'll have to do it again soon!

Nice reports! Does anyone know if there are restrictions on where one can anchor up on lake Washington? We stayed at the bay at Seward park. It sure was a great evening to sleep in the boat.

I zeroed out agian...................

Why do people keep telling me that sockeye are easy to catch? I had the right rig, slowed the boat to no more than 1.4 MPH and even went out and bought a reel to get me to the right depth........

I better start catching some salmon or my wife will start having fits over my purchases.......

Mike
I have not looked up chart # one for any specific restrictions... But common rumor is you can anchor in Andrews Bay and thats it.
From what I see on the charts you can anchor just about anywhere you want provided you are not in a traffic lane, blocking a special event or if you are anchored in a cable or pipeline area ( bad idea) be prepared to be liable if you hook said pipeline or cables.

I have not talked to anyone who could give me a definitive answer about " only in Andrews Bay". Although I have talked to many folks who have assured me that that is the only legal place.

I have seen boats do stern ties all the way around Seward Park.

The charts for Lake Washington shows anchorages in quit a few different places.

I do know that if you do anchor somewhere you should not ( middle of Lake union after the fireworks) the local constable will show up bright and early to cheerfully wake up your hung over butt and aske you to move (anchor outside the seaplane operations area and they wont even look twice at you).

Mike,

No real big differences between each side of the boat. I troll with my main, so no kicker influence. Both sides have electric riggers, although one is an old Penn 825, hmmmmm... swap it? nah, It has caught alot of fish in it's time. The drivers side with the Scotty caught them all this weekend and last. Just a Sockeye mystery I guess- Maybe they prefer to die with a Scotty over other brands???


That is hilarious Mau10Man! Like anything, stick to it and it will pay off. Most of us here know what you are dealing with, whether or not they would like to admit it or not.

Both weekends we had the about the same success rate for each rod. 60% of the grabs were on the same side of the boat. This time we saw 2 guys on one Seado fishing and a guy in a pontoon boat.

Saturday the 17th started @ 5:00 am hooked 20 landed 12 by 10:00 am.Most fish came off of the kicker side.Saturday the 24th hooked 12 laned 9 started @ 5:00 am had the boat on the trailer and was home by 9:30 am.All fish were caught pretty even on both sides.Only lost one set up for both day's.I run 20ld main and 40ld leaders and every time we get to fish for sockeye I loose at least one set up.I'm going 25lb main and 40lb next time.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Ran from my apartment's dock in Yarrow Bay all the way to S. end of MI - fishing by 5:30 with three of my sons 19, 11, and 9. 8 fish on - 8 fish in the box by 6:30 - three sets of doubles. Couldn't believe we didn't loose a single fish. Well we kind of lost one. My 9 yr old's first fish spit the hook just shy of the net but was still finning on the surface - spun around and netted him anyway. Last two fish of the day was a double-header of big bucks, 8-1/2 and 9 lbs weighed. An awesome day with the kids!

Well, it was one of those days...

Started off at 0:dark:30 with escaped cows from the neighbors fields (he weaned his calves the day before) getting into my electric fences and wiping them out, woke up with animals loose and fences shorted out so badly that they could not be repaired in the short time I allowed to get ready to go fishing. By the time we had animals rounded up and coralled we were way late, should have stayed home, but my wife and daughter could not fish with me last weekend so we went anyway, got to the launch in time to sit in line for several hours with the empty boat trailers as everyone was leaving with limits, and by the time we got launched and in the water it was afternoon, upper 90's, fish were sour, and although we found schools we found few biters, my wife caught a couple nice ones and that was it, about what I would have gotten if I had left early in the AM by myself and left her to round up the animals (as she graciously offered to do). Spent most of the day yesterday and still don't have the fences fixed, have hay in the fields to pick up now that I should have gotten off yesterday, and canned any ideas of sockeye fishing at Wenatchee next weekend as we don't want to risk another loose animal episode when we are not home . Not like I don't have a ton of fish in the freezer, just not a ton of sockeye like I hoped :rolleyes:

From the sherriff: "The only legal anchorage in Lake Washington is Andrews Bay"

I have 2 Cannon electrics and 1 manual Penn. They all caught fish. There was no pattern.