Cold Water, Hot Bite. Lake Merwin 02/22/20

I haven’t been fishing much or been active here in the last few years due to the rollercoaster we call life. But I now find myself with a degree of free time I haven’t had in ages, so with an open Saturday and good conditions I just had to go back to one of my favorite spots, Lake Merwin.

I rolled up to the lake at 7am and wow it was crowded already. Apparently the secret is out because the entire lower and upper lot was jammed full of trucks and trailers. I was glad to be in a kayak and avoided the long line at the boat ramp. It was a chilly and foggy but calm morning on the lake. The air temp barely hit 40 and the water temp was around 41-42. Definitely drysuit weather!

I headed out to the middle of the lake  and picked up a solid 12-13” kokanee right off the bat on an orange Brad’s kokanee cut-plug w/ tuna corn at 15’. I didn’t mark much or have another bite until I was nearly at the waterfall on the north side of the lake. When I got there I got another hit on the orange cut plug. Another decent fish. My other tackle was not getting bit so I switched my other rod to a “dusky” flavor cut-plug. Set my lures at 15’ and 25’ on the downriggers. All of the sudden the bite just goes off around 9am. I had 2 double hookups (all landed) within 30 minutes, and I had difficulty deploying both my rods because the bite was so fast and furious. The line was ripped out of my hand as I was trying to put it on the downrigger too, always exciting. It didn’t take long to get as much kokanee as I wanted. I took home 9 fish, only one dink. No pikeminnow, no lost fish and only a couple missed bites. All in all my best day of wintertime fishing at Lake Merwin!

With fishing goals accomplished I decided to cruise around the lake and look at the pretty waterfalls that are all around the lake. On the way home, I topped off with a tasty burger and shake from Burgerville in Woodland. Good times 


Fish were biting from the surface down to 25’, going 1.2-1.4 mph, used flash arrow dodgers, with orange and “dusky” Kokanee cut-plugs w/ ~18” leader tipped with tuna corn. Go get em!

Great Report !!  Looks like fun.  The secret on Merwin is apparently out.

Nice fish

Excellent report and great results!  Thanks!

-Mark-

Thanks for the great report. Seems like a little bigger fish up there than last year - sweet!

Nice fish, and those are pretty waterfalls, too.

Thanks folks! I'll be posting more in the future.

Redbeard, the adults last year were pretty big, I caught numerous fish in the 14"+ class. This year they might get even bigger!

I know Kokanee aren't massive fish and don't exactly excite like their larger cousins. That being said, arguably my favorite fishery primarily because of how delicious they are. They can be very challenging to get to bite at times and for their size fight like crazy especially trolling with downriggers or jigging. To be able to come home with fresh salmon reliably, year-round weather permitting, is special in my opinion.

Hey Micahgee

Hit Merwin for the first time last year and agree on the quality of the eats and how fun they are. I got started later when the water was a bit warmer and long lining is a bit of a challenge. I am curious about your down rigger setup. It seemed that the PBs were consistently hooking up and I am guessing some of that would have been more precise depth control

Beer_Run

Hey Micahgee

Hit Merwin for the first time last year and agree on the quality of the eats and how fun they are. I got started later when the water was a bit warmer and long lining is a bit of a challenge. I am curious about your down rigger setup. It seemed that the PBs were consistently hooking up and I am guessing some of that would have been more precise depth control

Beer_Run

I definitely recommend downriggers for Kokanee. Dropper weights and leadcore work but I personally much prefer the precision and fun fight from downriggers. My Kokanee game improved drastically once I made the transition. Being able to fish the thermocline in summer makes all the difference!

I run two Scotty lake trollers behind me on my Hobie Adventure. I designed and 3d printed Scotty mounts to attach to the existing threaded holes for the amas (akas?) with bolts. Happy to share the .stl files with anyone or make more if interested.

I think I am going to mount it on a rail.

One more ?. I have read about the wire being loud and annoying and people replace it with 100# braid. Did you have that issue?

Yeah I replaced with braid. Barely any noise, much safer in the event you need to cut as well.

Happy downriggin'

One more dumb question. What is your preferred weight. Hard to find ones less that 4#

The only dumb question is the one left unasked IMO!

4lbs work for me. Any less has too much blowback in my experience. No need to go heavier for Kokanee trolling.

Also sometimes I use a Shasta Tackle shuttle hawk which reduces all the cranking up and down. However I've noticed all that gear down there definitely can spook shy fish so I put up with cranking unless the bite is good. Doesn't seem to matter as much in the summer in my experience.

I am curious about your down rigger setup. It seemed that the PBs were consistently hooking up and I am guessing some of that would have been more precise depth control

Downrigger trolling is a great way to fish for kokanee.  If you see a school of kokanee 40 feet down on your fish finder, you can turn back and run your lure through the school in figure eight and cloverleaf patterns at 40 feet down, 38 feet down, or whatever you prefer. Once you've used a downrigger, thereafter leaded line, sinkers, and divers seem unacceptably uncertain and random, because you don't know how deep your lure is running.

I posted a description of the way I have set up my Revolution for downrigger trolling and an explanation of how to downrigger troll in a kayak at https://www.northwestkayakanglers.com/index.php?topic=12575.msg138905#msg138905.  You should find it helpful regardless of what kind of kayak you own.