NW Outdoor Explorer

Winter Kokanee fishing on Lake Merwin is not for the faint of heart. The cold, crisp air and icy waters can deter even the most dedicated angler. However, for those willing to brave the elements, the reward can be a thrilling day of fishing and the satisfaction of a successful catch. Here are a few tips for a successful winter Kokanee fishing trip on Lake Merwin.

The first step to a successful winter Kokanee fishing trip on Lake Merwin is to be well prepared. Dressing in layers is crucial to staying warm and comfortable throughout the day. Thermal underwear, a warm fleece, and a waterproof jacket are all must-have items for a cold winter morning. Additionally, gloves, a hat, and warm socks are essential to keeping extremities warm.

Once properly dressed, it’s time to head to the lake. Winter fishing on Lake Merwin often requires a bit more effort than during the warmer months. Launching a boat may require clearing ice from the ramp or maneuvering through snow and slush. It’s important to take extra precautions when launching and navigating the boat to ensure safety on the water.

Kokanees are known to be more active during low-light conditions, so an early morning start time is ideal. In the winter months, the sun doesn’t rise until later in the morning, so plan accordingly. Aim to be on the water at least an hour before sunrise for the best chance at a successful catch.

When it comes to fishing, winter Kokanee tend to be found at deeper depths. Utilizing a downrigger to get the bait to the desired depth is crucial for success. A small dodger followed by a pink or orange hoochie or small spinner is a great combination for winter Kokanee fishing. It’s important to keep the bait moving slowly and steadily, as Kokanees are known for being finicky and easily spooked.

Winter weather can be unpredictable, so it’s important to stay on top of weather forecasts and be prepared for any changes. Keep a close eye on the sky and be prepared to move if necessary.

One of the benefits of winter Kokanee fishing is the lack of competition on the water. With fewer anglers out on the lake, it’s possible to find a prime spot without having to compete for space. However, it’s important to remember to always follow all fishing regulations and guidelines to ensure a sustainable fishery for years to come.

Aside from the thrill of the catch, winter Kokanee fishing on Lake Merwin offers a unique opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of the lake in a quieter and more serene setting. The crisp air and snowy landscape provide a picturesque backdrop to a day of fishing.

In conclusion, while winter Kokanee fishing on Lake Merwin may require extra effort and preparation, it can also offer a rewarding and memorable experience for those willing to brave the cold. With the proper gear, knowledge, and caution, anglers can enjoy a successful day of fishing on the lake, while taking in the beauty of the winter scenery.

Going fishing the 1st day after the New Year celebration can be challenging, but every now and then, it pays off big time.

A couple buddies of mine talked me into fishing the sturgeon opener above Bonneville Dam this year. I managed to temper my New Years celebration a little and got to bed by 1am. After a short 4 hour nap, it was time to get up. Made the coffee and threw some snacks in a bag. We were on the road by 6am and made it to Hood River for a 7:30am launch.

Being the first time I have had my boat on the upper river, I needed to pay extra attention to the chart and nav aids as there were plenty of shallows to avoid. On the way down to our planned spot, there was no mystery to the popular sturgeon spots. Boats were stacked up on anchor over all the deep holes.

Landed on our planned anchor spot and got our lines out before about 8:15. We watched the boat next to us hookup to a couple shakers. It took us a little while before we started to get bit. After a couple shakers ourselves, we finally landed a nice keeper. It measured to be about 46″ in length.

The bite was pretty slow. Got another shaker before our next keeper. This one was about 41″ in length. We stayed in this spot till about noon before we decided to pull anchor and try another spot. Held the next spot for only about 45 minutes without a bite before we decided to move again.

We moved back toward the ramp and dropped anchor below a group of boats in about 90′ of water. Within 10 minutes, we hooked up. A second rod went off and we thought we had a double. After a little fight, we realized it was just one fish that tangled our second rod. Landed our third keeper and our boat limit for the day. This one was only about 40″ in length.

While reeling in the last rod to pack up and head in, a fish started to fight. Unfortunately, it came loose after a few tugs. We found a sweet spot, unfortunately, we were all tagged out. I marked this spot for the next time. 🙂

I have not been fishing much this year due to other activities and priorities like starting a lavender farm and my oldest daughter getting married. Now that the dust has settled, I am getting some good opportunities to get out and kill some fish.

This particular opportunity, I was invited out on a friends boat for a late season tuna trip. We could not have asked for better water and weather conditions for early October. There was a fog forecast that kept many sitting on their couches. This was very fortunate for us.

We all gathered in Ilwaco, WA for an early launch. We had to wait for the bait dock to open. With the live bait comfy in the tank, we headed out. The seas were relatively calm and there was a light fog. Visibility looked to be about 3-4 miles. We headed west to about the 30 line where we started our troll.

It was not long before we got our first screamer. Tried to get a second on, but no luck. Tossed a few handfuls of chum in the water and started our live bait action. Tuna started jumping around us and the show was on. This action lasted about an hour or so. About twelve on the deck before it shut off. We did a little cleanup and processed the fish while getting back on the troll. Minutes later, we found the school again. This time, live bait, iron, it did not matter. Whatever we threw at them, fish on. Again, this lasted about an hour or so before it turned off. This time, fifteen or so on the deck. Rinse and repeat, a little cleanup and processing while on the troll for a few minutes before the next hookup and frenzy.

Because this boat has a self bailing deck, we tried to keep as much blood off the deck, but it was so crazy at times, there was no way to prevent it. Eventually, the sharks came. We had what looked like to be about a 10 ft blue shark started circling us. He stayed with us the rest of the day. It made for some interesting times bringing in the tuna.

We had one stop one of our crew was magic with the iron. We started calling him ‘Ironman’. There was a school about 50 ft off the bow and they would not come to us. Ironman would toss over some iron and within a twitch or two, he had fish on. He would hand off the rod and grab another to toss a jig over. Seconds again and fish on. We repeated this process for quite some time. My arms were getting so tired, I had to take a break and man the gaff. Before 1pm, we had as much as we could hold on the boat and had to stop. It is a sad day you have to leave jumpers.

We heard others on the radio to the south of us that seemed to be struggling. We happened to be in the right spot at the right time. The ocean was flat that made it easier to spot the jumpers and the fog never showed up. I feel very fortunate to have experienced what tuna fishing is supposed to be like.

On the ride back in, we hit a shark and had to remove it from the prop. The entire day, there were young sunfish in large schools jumping tricking us to think they were tuna from afar. We even had a whale jump out of the water in front of us and we had to stop to make sure we did not hit it. It was an incredible day.

I am sure many are relieved to put 2020 behind them and look forward to 2021 and beyond. From the pandemic to all the inconsistent rules and guidelines about masking and social distancing. The most outrageous of all the restrictions was the fishing closure. How much more social distant can you be when fishing by yourself? Really??

Enough of all that, springer fishing is upon us and it has been a tough season so far. I have not been seeing many posts on social media of multiple fish, let alone single fish days. I have asked the fish checker each day, “How many today?” and the reply was often 1 out of 13 or 0 out of 20. Some people have managed to find them for sure, but the majority have been struggling. It seems the run is just a little later each year and this year feels no different.

This week, it started to turn around for us on the Aquaholic. We targeted a new spot and seemed to have pretty good luck each day. Maybe not one in the box each day, but we did see action. Sunday was an extreme weather day. High winds and downpours. We were all sitting in the cabin keeping warm by the heater and after some time, my rod buries a couple of times. I get to the rod and reel in to find a stripped hook. The fish got lucky that day. Unfortunately, it was a one takedown day. Got out again Tuesday and the weather was much improved, but it was still a one takedown day with nothing in the box. Wednesday was a slightly different story. Same location, another one takedown day, but this time, we landed the sucker. First springer of the year! It was not a trophy, but it was a fish in the box. Hit it again Thursday in the same location. Today’s hookup almost got to the boat. It breached the water, shook its head and it was gone. Total bummer. We did not get out again till Saturday. Same location again, same one hookup day, but this time, we got our second springer to the boat. Unfortunately, it was a native and we released it.

Sunday was a whole new story. It was the last day the Columbia would be open for springer’s and Easter Sunday as well. We got to the ramp just after 6 am and it was almost completely empty. There were only 4 trailers in the lot. People were either sleeping in, taking the day off for Easter or thought the Columbia was closed. Either way, it was a nice surprise to launch without any congestion. We got to our spot in short time and had our rods in the water by 6:30 am. The wind was blowing pretty good and I decided to troll with the wind opposite of all the other boats instead of fighting it. About 35 minutes into our troll, my buddy’s rod buckles over. He grabbed the rod and the fight was on. The fish made a couple good runs, but could not avoid the net. It was a pretty good size fish. Definitely bigger than the previous two I caught earlier in the week.

Ok, one in the box, now I need to get mine. We finished our first pass and decided to turn the other direction for our second pass. The wind started to die down a bit. It was probably about 45 minutes into our second pass and my rod buckles over. I grabbed the rod and started to reel. I got nervous at first. It was reeling in too easy and I did not feel a fish. It turns out, he was just running to the boat. I started to feel the shakes again. It got close to the boat where we could see it before it made its run. It was a nice one. My heart started pounding about now thinking I had better not lose this one. It dove straight to the bottom then ran out about 75 feet. Thank goodness there were no sealions around. I managed to get it back to the boat and it decided to take a run under the boat. I quickly stuck my rod in the water to not let the line scrape the bottom. I got it from under the boat and my buddy quickly scooped it up. That makes two in the box and we were done for the day. Not even two hours, it felt really weird. We had not even started snacking yet. My buddy had not finished his coffee and I was only on my first beer. We were in unknown territory. The feeling was incredible.

Our first fish was a very nice fish, but when you get them side by side, I felt grateful. The second fish measured out to about 34″ and weighed in at just over 17 lbs.

We took notice of the wind and wave forecast and started planning for this trip about a week out. If all the stars and planets aligned, we could potentially get into salmon, tuna, halibut and bottom fish all in the same trip.

The day before, the forecast improved even more. We were expecting less than a 5 mph wind and swells about 2 ft @ 12 seconds. Well, reality was not quite rainbows and unicorns. 🙂 The wind felt like 10 mph + and the swells were more like 3 ft @ 5 seconds. It was quite choppy. I managed to find a speed and trim that allowed us to travel without getting too beat up.

We first got the salmon rods out and baited up. We tried at depths of about 100 ft and a second at about 150 ft. We think we had one drive by, but after 30 minutes of no action, we called it thinking we would try again on the way in.

Unfortunately, the tuna water pushed too far off shore and we could not fish tuna this day. We got to our first halibut location in about 75 minutes. This was more of a scouting spot. Our buddy boat was a little slower than us so they just continued to push on to our primary halibut spot. Water depth at this location was 700 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. After about 30 minutes, we managed to pull in one good sized black cod (sable fish). We fished another few minutes with no action and decided to pull lines and push on to our primary location.

After another 45 minute run, we arrived at our primary halibut location. Our buddy boat already had two halibut in the boat. The water depth here was 900 ft. We dropped our lines and begun our drift. It took some time to get our first hookup, but it was worth the wait. We had our first halibut in the boat.

We got a couple lings, a few more black cod and a rock fish in about the same time our buddy boat got two more halibut. What the hell were we doing wrong? Fishing the same gear with the same bait on about the same drift line. We started to doubt methods about the same time our one and only manual rod got doubled over and line was getting pulled out. 🙂 FISH ON!!!

After about 20 minutes reeling this manual rod, I was starting to feel a little like an episode of Wicked Tuna. My wife and I took turns reeling. Our arms were starting to feel like wet noodles. This fish was fighting pretty good most of the way up. I do not know exactly how long it took us to reel that fish, but it felt like hours. It was well worth it. It was the biggest halibut of the day. I seriously doubt I will fish halibut again without an electric reel. They are not cheap, but after this, it would be worth every penny. 🙂

Our buddy boat managed to get all five of their halibut and started to head back. At this time, we had three in the boat and were looking for our last. We continued fishing for another 45 minutes before we decided to call it. Unfortunately, this pushed us well beyond our window to fish salmon on the way in.

Going back always seems to be smoother sailing than coming out. Dialed in the trim and flew back at about 30-35 mph. 10 miles from shore, we hit something without warning and cut the engines. It was quite a thud and I was nervous to see the damage. Raised both motors and saw a carcass float off. It looked to be a shark. Luckily, there was no damage to the motors and after a short piss break, we were back on plane and heading in.

It was a great day on the water with some good friends.

Who does not like an early boat limit of nice sized coho? People who fish like fishing, but they do not necessarily want to spend all day doing it unless they are just out to catch and release. This was not one of those days.

We pulled away from the dock just after 7am. Executed a quick stop at the bait dock on the way out. It was an outgoing tide, but not a huge tide change. The bar was relatively calm. We got just outside of the south jetty and dropped our lines. We spotted a boat next to us with a net out and within minutes, we had our first fish on. It was a nice sized coho and a keeper to boot. Not much longer, we were getting bites and more fish in the boat. We could see the bulk of the fleet on the horizon as we were trolling toward them. We had our limit well before we got to them. By 10:30, we were on our way back to the dock with our boat limit. The tide was still going out. 🙂

The early coho fishing this year has been great for a number of anglers so far. I really hope they do not decide to close the ocean like they did last year.

With the dwindling salmon fishery, thank you WDFW and ODFW, we are looking to other fisheries to keep fish in the freezer. I recently got invited to buddy boat to halibut grounds out of Garibaldi. Since our springer season was pretty much a bust due to the pandemic, we accepted the invite.

The plan was to launch at 5am and get an early start. Apparently, the Port of Garibaldi has some pretty messed up scheduling and launch rules that caused us to scramble for a transient mooring the night before. They do not even open the ramp for launching till 6am. WTF!!! Also, due to the pandemic, they only have one lane on each side open which caused a huge backup when they did finally open. Needless to say, I will probably not be taking my boat to launch out of Garibaldi very often.

Anyway, even with the overnight mooring, we did not quite get out at 5am. We did manage to leave the dock shortly after 5:30am with plans to follow another boat out to their numbers. It was max ebb at the jaws and the crossing was pretty rough, but we had no problem getting out. Once out in the ocean, it was not quite as smooth as we had hoped. My buddy boat could not quite keep up with the other boat we had planned to follow out to their secret spot and had to call off the chase. Fortunately, my buddy boat had their own set of numbers as a backup and we started our very rough trek out.

Two hours and twenty minutes later, we arrived. We had to make one stop on the way to allow for a little chumming. One of my mates did not get quite enough sleep the night before. 🙂 We baited up and dropped our lines. As this was my first halibut trip, I really had no idea what to expect. It took almost 5 minutes to drop the line to depth. It felt like forever. Within 3 minutes of bouncing the bottom, we had a double hookup. We were extremely fortunate to have a great friend that let us use two of his brand new electric reels. I am not sure we would have had as much fun without them. Even with the electric reels, it took more than 15 minutes to reel the fish in with the occasional tugs and runs. My friend on the other reel got his up first. It was a pretty large rock fish. To the cooler it went. Mine got to the surface a few minutes later and low and behold, it was a halibut. WOW, this halibut fishing is easy. 🙂 We continued to hookup within minutes of bouncing the bottom for about another 2 hours before the bite turned off. Unfortunately, we only landed the one halibut. Better to be lucky than good sometimes.

With the one halibut per person per trip and only six halibut per year, this could be a very expensive fishery, especially of you happen to not land a halibut on any one trip. As expensive as it may be, I could see us continuing to make halibut runs from time to time.

The stars and moon were in alignment. The tide was just right. No wind, not even a ripple on the water. We launched and had lines in the water just before sunrise. There was a light fog hovering just over the water. The water temp was a cool 46.4 degrees. The air temp was about freezing. Everything suggested we were going to catch a springer today. Something was missing though, the springers. 🙂

It turned out to be an awesome day on the water, less the catching fish part. After the sun came up, it started to warm up pretty fast. We made a few runs here and there before we decided this boat shakedown was long enough. We called it before noon. I did discover I have a couple repairs to do after the long winter. My wash down pump was not working and my dock lights would not illuminate. Hopefully just a little corrosion to clean up and we will be back to full functionality.

As excited as I am, it is a little early for springers. I believe our earliest was March 4th. We will continue the hunt and keep you informed.

After the Fall salmon season has ended, if you are like me, you start thinking about the next years springer season. Yes, there is plenty of Winter steelhead fishing to be done, but I am a big salmon junkie.

It is that time of year now and I am itching to get out there. Typically, I am out mid February hoping for that lucky first springer. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. I have been seeing a couple of posts of springer’s this season already.

As a newish resident of Washington, I finally got my boat registered and am ready to hit the water. This week, I have an opportunity to “work” from my floating office. I want to make each trip count and be a little more efficient than I have been in the past, especially with the even lower than normal forecasts. Looking at the weather, tides and Solunar forecast, later in the week is looking much better than sooner.

Today, the wind is moderate, the gusts look to be high at times and the fish forecast is showing fish possible, but not an abundance.

Now, Friday is looking to be like the day for me if I were looking for the most efficient day of the week. The wind is light, the gusts are minimal and the Solunar forecast is looking much better.

I guess I will continue prepping gear till Friday and hope to update you on the results with great success.

WOW! I have mixed feelings about the fishing trip today. We took our old neighbors from Sherwood, Mark and his son Alex, out for a second day hoping to repeat what we experienced yesterday. The drive out to Ilwaco was typical. Nothing to report. Got to the boat and prepped the crab traps. Today, we were going to make the effort to set a line. Launched by 8am and made our way around to the bait dock. Loaded a couple pounds into the live well and started with a pound on ice. Out to the big blue we go. The weather synopsis was indicating even less wind than yesterday. The wind waves and swells were supposed to be about the same. Crossing the bar was a non event. No waves or swells and almost full speed ahead. Once we got outside, the ocean was as flat as I have seen in a while. We raced 40mph to the crab grounds north of the jetty. Set our line and as long as we were stopped, decided to throw out the lines. Within minutes, we got our first bite. It was short lived. After a couple head shakes almost to the boat, it was gone. We trolled for a few more minutes before we decided to head further north. Again at 40mph, we reach our spot in just a few minutes. Weeks prior, this is where we were getting nothing but Chinooks. Hoping for the same, we start our troll. We tried several depths, all directions and a few different spots without so much as a nibble. Just a little disappointing. Listening to the radio, it sounded like most of the fleet was back out at the canyon in 300-500 FOW. That was a bit farther out than I really wanted to go, but we decided to make the treck. With the ocean as flat as it was and flying at 40mph again, it did not take long till we got out to 300 FOW. I c ould start to see the fleet on the horizon, but really did not want to go out any further. We dropped our lines and started out troll to the east. within minutes, we got our first bite. I am thinking I made the right decision. This one makes it to the net and we now have our first fish in the boat. A few minutes later and we now have another fish on. This one turns out to be native and had to be let go. This continues consistently, but we managed to lose several and the ones we did get to the net were all native. It was finally time to call it a day and go pull the crab pots. I was a bit disappointed to only have one in the boat, but it was not due to lack of fish on. With the ocean still flat as a small lake, we fly to the crab traps and begin our pulls. If success is gauged by the number of crabs in the traps, then it was an awesome day crabbing. Unfortunately, after the females and smalls were tossed back, we only ended up with two keepers. It was an awesome day with plenty of action, just not much to take home today. Cannot wait till next week.