Wanted to show a friend from out of town my new-to-me boat so decided to take it out on Lake Sammamish last Wednesday. We tried a little fishing but mainly just cruised up and down the eastern side of the Lake as the wind was blowing pretty hard making trolling tough.

Did notice some pretty good sized fish on the fish finder in about 90 feet of water mixed in with and I assume feeding on alot of smaller fish. They were scattered from 30 to 80 feet in depth. We located them north of the little private park about midway up the lake.

Couldn't get any of them to bite, but we really only tried for about 45 minutes or so before the wind really kicked up and the rain started coming down in buckets. We were using gang trolls with wedding rings or needle fish on the ends, but I forgot to bring some worms or power bait.

I'm probably going to try again this weekend if the weather is a little better and I can get my brother to go. I'll post any results.

Thanks for the report. I'll be hitting the lake a few times this winter (mainly when the rivers are blown out...).

I used to do well on Sammamish from December to March fishing that location. I would use a small downrigger, drop to 30', and troll a small spoon far back from the rigger. I used Andy Reeker spoons or Needlefish. The cutts love 'em. Good luck.

Went back to Lake Sammamish yesterday and experimented with several different rigs.

We fished along the eastern side of the lake as there was a lot of large fish showing on the depth finder in 70 to 80 feet of water along with smaller smolt size mixed in. They ranged in depth from 30 feet down to the bottom.

There seemed to have been some sort of bug hatch as my boat had a bunch of 3/8 inch mosquito-looking flies on the outside and gulls were evenly spaced all over the water chasing and eating them. Only saw a few fish rising to the surface to eat them, mainly towards the boat launch, but it was pretty cold out, 30 to 40 degrees.

Started out with needlefish, 1 by itself and the other 3 feet behind a gang troll both with a bit of worm on the hooks. Tried various speeds, depth and length behind the riggers with no results. Next switched 1 pole over to a spin-n-glo hootchie combination. Again tried various speeds and depths with no results.

Finally, switched 1 pole to a army truck coyote spoon and the other pole to a gang troll w/ wedding ring. We were back down towards the launch by this time and the sun was starting to peak through the clouds.

About then the coyote spoon had a couple of good tugs but no hookup. I think I need to switch the large siwash out for a swivel and a smaller siwash if I want to use it for lake fishing.

As soon as we reset the rigger and got going again, my brother hooks up. He has the pole with the gang troll and wedding ring. The wedding ring has some small sharp number 4 gamatsu hooks on it tipped with green power bait and worm. He pulls in a pretty, chunky 14 inch rainbow which gives him a good little fight. About this time the clouds closed and the sun went away and we didn't get any more hits.

Might try again during the week as my work is out till the new year.

your mosquito looking things were chironomids. The cutts key in on those in the winter and the chronies usually live in fairly shallow water of 25' or less. I have heard they "migrated" to the depths in the winter.

Went back to Sammamish today and ended up catching and releasing 3 trout.

Caught the first on a pink bodied, black bladed roostertail and the last 2 on a silver plated, predominately purple Kingfisher spoon. All were caught off the downrigger between 30 to 35 feet down and about 75 feet behind the boat. On the spoon I had switched the standard hook for a smaller siwash.

Didn't get out on the water till 11:30, just about the time the fog on the lake started breaking up. It was a pretty nice day compared to the last time I was out and the temperature seemed like it was in the mid 40's.

2 of the fish were 13 to 14 inches long and the third & largest was about 16.