Report: July 5 Lake Washington

My friend from Santa Cruz (guide Allen Bushnell of Santa Cruz Kayak Fishing) came into town for a few days and he wanted to kayak fish so decided to hit up Lake Washington to see if the Cutthroat action was still hummin'. We both used really simple rigs with a sliding sinker and 2 oz. of lead with a long leader. We started off at 7:30 with cool water and lots on the FF. I got a fish on about 15 minutes after we started and was a nice long fight that ended getting it to the yak. Taped out to be 19". We had a nice school of cutties slash some stickleback right in front of us so lightly trolled through them but no hookup. We trolled for 4 more hours with no more to show for it so packed it in for the day. Was a beautiful day with great conditions and a good friend.

Z

Very nice cutt! Sounds like it was a fun day!

I just remembered that way back in the early 60's when I used to fish off the dock at Clyde Beach on Meydenbauer Bay at the foot of 92nd Ave. We'd get Cutts from the dock in the Spring and Fall, usually early in the morning. We'd cast out and drag a nightcrawler or worm/egg combo across the bottom using 3 feet of 2# test leader, size 14 hooks, and slip sinkers. I used a small closed face spincast reel (a Bronson "Dart!") on an 8' 5/6 wt. flyrod with 4# mainline for dock fishing back then. It worked better than my light spinning gear for dock fishing for the trout (also got "Donaldson" hybrid rainbows in Lake WA back then, too) and Kokanee.
 In the early Spring, we'd catch Kokanee from the same dock, using a single egg on a similar rig, but retrieving our line very slowly from the bottom to the surface, with lots of long pauses. Chumming would help bring the Kokanee in close to the dock.