So how'd everyone do? Good? Bad? Slow? Hot?
I have been camping the last 4 days, can't wait to get out and put a couple in the cooler. Heard it was an absolute zoo, could walk from Renton to 520 on all the boats.

Kev

Hot, Hot, Hot!!! If you did'nt limit today, you lost a double on prop like we did. We still brought a limit home. Amazing what a native run can do when left alone for a few years. It's a zoo, but well worth it.

Plunker:

I lived in Redmond in the 50's, at that time the sockeye in a small creek, Bear Creek, were there by the millions. Bear Creek flowed in the Sammish Sough which in turn came in near Bothell. I don't know if that run is still "alive and well" cause of all the developement in Redmond. I remember that the Cedar River also had a big run of sockeye during the same time....I don't know what the definition of "Native is", but 50 years ago there was plenty of sockeye in Lake Washington......

"Worse day sport fishing, is still better than the best day working".....

Once you got your boat launched, fishing was awesome

Growing up in Seattle I understood this was a native Sockeye run to the Cedar River. Can someone clarify this?

The Bear Creek run was native, the Cedar River run is a hatchery originated run, according to some bios up there I know.

Yup, native sockeye use Bear, North, and Cottage Creeks, all tributaries of the Sammamish River. Historical run sizes up to 40,000 fish, much smaller now.

The Cedar River/Issaquah Creek sockeye are from the Baker Lake stock and were first transplanted to the Cedar in the 1930s/1940s. Pretty good deal all around, since despite highly fluctuating run sizes, they won't ever come under ESA, which can only declare 'native' runs threatened or endangered.

Check out http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/sockeye/background.htm

What a fantastic fishery! 4 of us limited by 8am. First hookup was a double! We had two more doubles during the morning. First strike took about an hour, but then it was FISH ON!
Will be out again this evening and perhaps tommorow morning.
Fished with Stacked Penn 600's getting fish at all depths from 35 to 75 feet.
Can anyone please tell me the correct punch code for these guy's. We marked LW 7 4 R.
(thnx for correcting me on the date parker, I wasn't looking at my card when I originally wrote this)
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Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will spend the rest of his life drinking beer on a boat.

[This message has been edited by Fishguts (edited 07-05-2000).]

Wow! I take it that FishGuts did *NOT* get checked by Fish & Game on the 4th? If FishGuts had that on his punchcard, I'd suspect he would have gotten a nice fat citation! Yowza!

Were you really fishing on the 7th of April?

Your punchcard from yesterday should have read:

762 7 4 R

Fish & Game are out in force. Make sure you have the correct licenses, correctly punch those fish once they are landed, and once you get your limit, reduce your poles in the water.

Parker

Thanks for the informative web-site fishguts. This brings up another question I'd like to present to the board:

The web-site stated that the native sockeye in the lake are kokanees (landlocked sockeyes). I had not known this; I thought they were sea-bound. Does this mean that before the locks were put in, Lake Washington had no connection to Puget Sound, hence had no anadromous runs? I've heard that the Cedar chinook and steelhead runs are native, but these could be original wild fish from before the Cedar was routed into Lake Washington (It used to flow into the Green/Duwamish??). Also heard of a monster old sturgeon that recently died in the lake; where did he come from?

Any long-timers out there with some history to share? Thanks


[This message has been edited by obsessed (edited 07-05-2000).]

Talked to an old timer in Black Diamond sports before it closed. He remembers when the green, cedar, and raging all flowed together. And was talking about a springer run going up the green to the raging. From what he said was that the raging was rediverted by a huge log jam down by the game farm park and that the corp of engineers put the cedar into Lake washington. don't know how true that is but could you imagine a nice run a springers on the Green?

tight lines and happy dreaming
Kevin

[This message has been edited by Kevin (edited 07-05-2000).]

Yeah, Parker you busted me there!
Thanks for the Lake Washington code. We searched through the regs and couldn't seem to find it in there.

Heading out right now! Ye Haw!!

6 July 2000
The river and lake codes are on page 10.
Got Skunkeyed last night. Heading for Sooke for Big Kings tomorrow morning. Good luck to all!

[This message has been edited by Fishguts (edited 07-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Fishguts (edited 07-06-2000).]

The Cedar (Black River) and the White River ( Stuck River) all use to flow into the Green!!!! The Springers used to go up the White, it was a wonderful run of fish until Puget Power diverted most of the water to Lake Tapps!!! The White River was diverted to the Puyallup River around the turn of the century. I don't know when the Cedar was diverted. Can you imagine the runs of fish going into the Green!!!!!

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Tight Lines!!

I heard the success rate for Tuesday's opener was estimated at 1.24 fish per rod with close to 13,000 fish being taken. Amazing!

Some history about Lake Washington and sockeye.

Two genetic types of sockeye are identified in Lake Washington, the transplanted Baker Lake stock, and another (north end of lake stock) that may be native. 76,000 sockeye fingerlings of the Baker stock were placed in Issaquah Creek in July 1935, 76,000 in the Cedar River in July 1935 and another 20,000 in October 1935. Few adults returned from those plants. Next the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provided eyed sockeye eggs to the state fisheries department which released 1,257,000 fry in Issaquah Creek and 656,000 fry into the Cedar River in 1937 (from 1936 spawners). In 1940, 9,099 adults returned to Issaquah Creek, and 400 adult sockeye returned to the Cedar River. More eyed eggs from the Baker stock were supplied to the state hatchery at Issaquah, but the numbers of fish subsequently stocked are not recorded. But it is clear that by 1940, Baker origin sockeye were established in the Lake Washington watershed. This information is from the report by Joe Kemmerich, the district supervisor of the Baker Lake hatchery, 1945.

Apparently there is no historical documentation of a sockeye run in Lake Washington prior to the Baker introductions. The other sockeye in Lake Washington may be a genetic divergence of the Baker fish or the product of an indigenous kokanee population that somehow landlocked itself in Lake Washington, about which I'll offer some speculation.

Before the government locks and the Montlake cut in 1916, Lake Washington was nine or more feet higher in elevation. So the Sammamish River was more swampy than now, and Lake Washington drained through a swamp at its south end into the Black River in Renton, and then into the Green, which at the confluence with the Black becomes the Duwamish. The Cedar River also drained into the Black River before being "trained" to flow into Lake Washington. Since the Cedar drained into the Black, that makes it understandable how chinook and steelhead would have had direct access to it without traversing a swamp or lake. And if the Cedar didn't flow through a lake, it would have been less likely to have a sockeye run. And apparently there were no sockeye using the Cedar before 1940.

If Lake Washington drained via a swamp into the Black River, environemental conditions would not have been good for a sustainable sockeye run. That is, sockeye might not make there way through the warm July waters of a swamp and into the lake. An example is that Baker sockeye were also stocked in Lake Samish which drains into the Samish River via Friday Creek. This never developed into a run in part because the small Friday Creek has a very low, warm flow during July when these sockeye run. So I speculate that the swamp at the south end of Lake Washington may have been an environmental barrier to the establishment of an abundant sockeye population. But since the conection did exist, enough sockeye may have strayed into Lake Washington historically to have established a kokanee population. And these could be the other, unidentified genetic stock of sockeye in the north end of the lake. When access through the cut was established, these kokanee may have gradually developed a sea-going habit, and their population may have grown unnoticed along with the introduced sockeye from Baker Lake. How's that for historical guesswork?

As mentioned in another post, the White River used to join the Green, over near Auburn. It was diverted by a log jam in 1908 into the Stuck River, and has flowed into the Puyallup River ever since, aided by a dike, probably curtousy of the Corps of Engineers.

One of the interesting things through all of this is that the introduced Lake Washington sockeye run is about 50 times larger than the Baker Lake population that it originated from. In the 1930s, the fish and wildlife service thought sockeye were such a great deal to commerical fishing, and the Fraser sockeye run suffered huge losses from the 1913 slide at Hell's Gate on the Fraser, they stocked Baker sockeye in just about every Washington lake that might support a run. They tried Lake Stevens, Lake Cavanaugh, and even sent them to Ozette and Quinault, altho those lakes already had native sockeye runs. Stocking fish hither and yon is a long standing tradition, it seems. Hope this all somehow adds to your enjoyment of the Lake Washington sockeye fishery this summer. The public benefits of this fishery alone are strong indications that it deserves more thoughtful management to achieve positive social benefits, but I won't do that rant here.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Well, I got out there myself this morning, on the water by 5am, bagged a couple of fish and back at the dock by 6:15am. These fish are a blast on light gear! Not as many boats, but it's still a zoo. Heard there were some avid anglers out in float tubes on 7/4, one managed to hook and land one. Sounds like and easy way to become a speed bump for a boat, if you ask me. I'm sure they had a blast, though!

Kev

Thanks Salmo,once again you have provided us with more knowledge then we started with...boy I feel smarter all ready seriuosly thanks for the info...

Anyone know if a boatless angler like myself can rent a small boat on Lake Washington? Each of the past two mornings on my way to work, I drive across the I-90 bridge and gaze wistfully at the boats out on the water. Playing hooky in the A.M. wouldn't pose any problems for me--I just need a dang boat! Unfortunately, for the time being I live in a small apartment, which is why I don't have a craft of my own. Any and all advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I was in the water at about 5:30. Had about 10 hits, but was only able to land one of them.

Sturza;
1 for 10? What are you using?
I have a friend who has missed half a dozen, including our only hit last night. He keeps putting three or 4 big whacks into the fish trying to set the hook and keeps coming up empty. A fairly light set seems to get most every one.
Good Luck to all!