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Holy Moly Weekly Report April 10th 2016: Steelhead, Blackmouth, Kokanee Oh My!

Cowlitz River Steelhead Holy Moly Outdoors Kokanee Lake Stevens Puget Sound Blackmouth Weekly Report

What a three day weekend! This was much needed fishing time to get me through a tough work week.  With the kitchen pass open I headed out the door Thursday night for some Cowlitz River Steelhead and Springers in the Morning.  I was too anxious upon getting to the river to even think about sleeping as I saw multiple people walking out with nice steelhead caught just before I had arrived.  (Note: The Cowlitz river is open legally at night for steelhead fishing at the blue creek trout hatchery).  I quickly threw on my hip waders, grabbed my gear and set off down the trial.  Once set up, I could hear rolling fish and that only got me more fired up to be there.  About 15 minutes in I had a take down with my glow jig.  Ended up putting a very healthy buck on the bank just before midnight.  I ended up switching to a glow corkie and picked up a second steelhead soon after.  The highlight of the evening was hooking into a very nice sized Spring Chinook.  Brought it all the way to shore only to have it go ballistic into a root wad and break off.  It was a fun filled night with two nice fish to go home with.  Unfortunately, the dam released 2k of water flow while I was fishing.  This made the morning Spring Chinook bite at the dam shut off.  I did have a brief hookup on a float and jig, I was not able to turn the fish and it was gone.  At any rate, a blast of a trip to the mighty Cowlitz.

Fishing Day 2 brought a new trip experience for me, Puget Sound Blackmouth.  I have never fished blackmouth before, and got the opportunity to go with an old baseball coach of mine.  We launched out of Edmonds to fish one of the last open days of the season.  Armed with salmon flashers, spoons and my Velocity rod I was ready to chase some fish.  We fished the Tin can of Possession Bar in 120-140ft of water, bouncing the downrigger balls on the sandy bottom to find these fun fish.  Soon into our second set, my coach hooks a nice fish, about a 23" legal keeper.  On the board for the boat!  After moving around looking for bait (find the bait find the blackmouth) my rod takes a dive.  This fish put up a great fight on the Velocity rod and came to the net at 24" and legal hatchery keeper.  A nice chunky first Blackmouth for me!  The AN Sporting Herring scent stick in the picture was key to getting this fish to commit.  We finished the day off with another cookie cutter 23" keeper for the boat and headed on home.  Absolutely beautiful day on the water and learned how to fish a new fishery, got to love that.

  

To finish the weekend off day three brought a slot opening to chase after some evening kokanee on Lake Stevens with my buddy Matt.  We arrived at the lake just after the regatta crew races finished up for the weekend.  We decided to stick to the east side of the lake and look for schools of jumping fish.  Took a little bit to find some biters but ended up getting the right gear combo going and were soon into a fast paced bite.  So fast in fact we couldn't even put out all the gear because we were missing strikes.  But as fishing can go, not all bites turn to catch.  We only ended up with 2 in the boat with a decent amount of other fish that came off.  But that is fishing, and you got to love just being out on the water.  What a fun trip and what a blast of a weekend.  Now it's time to get ready for the lake Chelan Kokanee Derby.  Fish On!



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