Merwin 2013 post it here

[Strike Zone]

Yep: Seeing the smiles on the faces of your kids or grand kids makes it all worth while. I think if we go a month earlier next year the fish are going to be on the bite a lot better. At least that's what I found to be true this year. I think that after the bloom is done and the water release over the dam quits fluctuating so much the bite will come back on. But the salmon in the Columbia are starting to call pretty loud so I may have to shift gears.
Strike Zone

 

[live2fish]

Is anyone catching fish? If so how?

It doesn't seem that there are any successful stories of ppl catching their limit on Merwin this year. We have been out five times, offered many rigs, lures and bait, but its been terribly slow. Ladt year we nailed them. Anyone?

 

[Strike Zone]

live2fish

The fishing in the last couple weeks has fallen off considerably for most I think. But the last part of April and the 1st- 3 weeks in May it was very good for alot of people. I was out for a little last Thursday and a little on Friday any I noticed it seemed to be quite a bit harder to find cooperative fish. I'm thinking the bloom going on up there had made the fish not want to bite very much. I've also heard the water going out of the dam has been fluctuating which could be affecting the bite. I'm not sure tho.
Just my opinion.
Strike Zone

 

[yimmee]

I am with you live2fish. Only been out a handful of times this year and it was slow at best. Chief and I have not had a problem getting limits in the past. This year is much more different. If anyone could throw us a life line, I would be deeply in your debt. Thanks in advance.


Jeromy

 

[redosprey]

My wife and I made our first Merwin trip of the year this past weekend. Fished Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and caught a total of 46 Kokes ranging from 13 to 16 inches. Had a couple of Kokanee "newbies" with us, as well as our 4 year old granddaughter, so needless to say we had as many "hookups" as we landed! I know the total count is far below what we could have had if we had limited, I don't think my back could have stood up under any more cleaning than what we did. Most productive area was directly across from Speelyai ram and east up the far shoreline to the Merwin Hideaways boat docks. Back and forth in about 95 feet of water on downriggers set at between 41 feet and 51 feet in the 50-55 degree thermocline . Used primarily pink hoochies behind sling blade style dodgers with white corn, marinated in Crawfish Anise Smelly Jelly. Saturday and Sunday after about 11:00 am became a real zoo, with criss-cross waves bouncing us all over the place! We never made it out on the lake before 7:30 am, so we probably missed some of the best fishing, but all-in-all, it was a very enjoyable trip and our granddaughter was thrilled with her "first fish". The fish we caught should be in the 15 to 18 inch size by late July or August, so we're really excited to get back up there!

 

[Kokonuts]

Redosprey,
Glad to hear that you had a great time at Merwin! They are hard to land at times, we all know how many it takes to get the limit!

I am going up tomorrow after a week at Wickiup so thanks for the great report, you covered all of it!

Kokonuts

 

[redosprey]

Redosprey,
Glad to hear that you had a great time at Merwin! They are hard to land at times, we all know how many it takes to get the limit!

I am going up tomorrow after a week at Wickiup so thanks for the great report, you covered all of it!

Kokonuts

Hey Kokonuts, have a great time tomorrow! How did you do at Wickiup? That's one of our favorite lakes, but it's so darn far to drive, we don't make it over there very often.

Redosprey

 

[MackPrince]

Jiggy, a friend and I hit the lake on the 9 th and ended up with plenty of fish at the end of 4 hours. For me I had best luck with Vance's and Kokanee Creek dodgers on my lead core.They were using an assortment of sling blades behind the big balls. The tricky part this time of year is locating the thermocline depth and avoiding the pikemonnows. With the sunny weather the lake was crazy busy and success seemed to depend on the boat. A few guys were on- point and putting on a show. fencing. Just as I joked about dreading using the heavy ford fenders one guy began Chinese fire drilling with the old school set up on his and his boys' rods.

 

[redosprey]

Funny you should mention the pikeminnows. My wife and I were just commenting on how few we actually catch anymore! Used to catch 5 or 6 for every Koke. Now it's 8 or 10 Kokes for every Pikeminnow! Seems like the Tiger Muskie plant has done it's job. On the down side, we don't see as many Eagles and Ospreys as we used to. Probably because there's not as many "free meals" floating on the surface.

 

[Kokonuts]

I was on the water for the first time in 2 weeks and what a surprize! The Lake is full of Algae!

Saturday was the worst day I've had in a long time, all I could bring to the boat was the 6"-8" fish that were everywhere, even down to 60ft.

Sunday was almost as bad but I was following Team Wild Child and talking with them on the radio so I did manage to bring in 4 nice Kokanee, but still had problems with the Algae and small size fish. The Algae would coat your line and lures & I have never seen it so bad!

Scott & Shawn were well on there way to a limit of 20 when I had to leave about 1:00. They really know how to fish Merwin!worthy12

Kokonuts

 

[Mudinchev]

Sunday was almost as bad but I was following Team Wild Child and talking with them on the radio so I did manage to bring in 4 nice Kokanee, but still had problems with the Algae and small size fish. The Algae would coat your line and lures & I have never seen it so bad!

Scott & Shawn were well on there way to a limit of 20 when I had to leave about 1:00. They really know how to fish Merwin!worthy12

Kokonuts

Hey it was you who told me what they (the little ones) were biting on! It turns out the big ones liked the same thing...thumbsup The first 3 hours of fishing only netted us 3 fish! Although we were testing out some new custom lures we made for a while. They look great to me but evidently the fish didn't think so lol. So it was back to the ol tried and true gear. We started out on the South side of the lake by the stump farm where we had good luck 2 weeks ago, we were marking fish but couldn't find any willing to play. After that we moved to the area directly in front of Merwin Park and wouldn't you know it, an area that I haven't had much luck in the past we started finding willing biters. The algae was BAAAD every 10-15 minutes it would build up on the line so much it would pull the line out of the DR clip, if you caught a fish on a not freshly cleaned line you had to battle your line getting jammed in the eyes and slacking the line as you slapped the rod tip in the water to clear the gunk which resulted in a quite a few lost fish. For the most part it was a constant motion of either keeping the lines clean or dealing with fish, we didn't have very much time where all 4 rods were fishing and we were sitting and it wasn't becasue the fishing was that great. Either way it was a great way to spend Fathers day, Shawn even let me reel in a few more fish than usual laugh hyst. 40-50 feet deep, Pink micro hoochies trailing Shasta Sling blades was the hot ticket for the day.

 

[Strike Zone]

We had a fun day on Merwin on Monday. Fishing wasn't like it was a month ago, but we came home with 12 real nice ones by noon. We did best with 3 ounces of weight ahead of a cousin carl troll with 28 inches to a pink/chrome, brass bladed wedding ring, with white scented corn about 70 feet back. I think we were down around 30 feet or so. The algae is still real thick. We did get a few on the down riggers rigged with wedding rings too, but the cousin carl was by far the best. Anyway a great time was had, and we are looking forward to getting back up there.
Strike Zone

 

[Kokonuts]

I was out Fri. & Sat. and the Alage is still very bad as well as the fishing. Jessie, Josiah & I caught 8 on Sat. after being out all day and Josiah and I got 2 on Sat. morning.
We fished all of the good spots from the dam to Speelyai and used just about everything from Micro Hoochies to Apex lures! The fish are scattered all over and the best we could find was small groups not schools.

Kokonuts

 

[Strike Zone]

Kokonuts: Rich. Sounds like it was a mite slow up there. It's bound to get better. Hang in there. If you taught me anything about kokanee fishing it was that patience pays off in the end, and don't be afraid to change things up.
Strike Zone, (Denny)

 

[Kokonuts]

No Worries.......I'll be back!

Kokonuts

 

[Mudinchev]

Fishing was almost as hot as the weather today! We only had a few hours this morning, Shawn had a birthday party to attend at noon but we thought we would give it a go and see what we could scrounge up. We started dropping gear at about 6:30 and finished up at 10:00! I was pleasantly surprised to find that the fish were where we left them 2 weeks ago (Merwin Park). We had some really good fighters today, a couple of the fish reminded me of the Wickiup fish! The action was lights out hot for the first hour neither of us could even sit down, it was a challenge to keep all the rods in the water/fishing. We had quite a few drive byes and and missed fish but when its that fast and furious it just adds to the excitement. The algae is still there but its not nearly as bad as it was. I would say we never went 10 minutes with out some sort of action and had a few doubles and one triple. The surface temp was averaging 70 degrees but we still found the action to be between 40 and 60 feet. The minute I would start to think about focusing the gear at a more specific depth the quiet rods would start to see some action so we left every thing spread out. We were going a little slower today 1.3 instead of 1.5 like I normally try to run, honestly I never even looked at the speed until we had time to sit down, that is just where we happened to start (I never got around to fine tuning it when we started). As far as gear, UV Shasta sling blades and copper/red sling blade, all with pink R & K Super micro hoochies tipped with corn got it done today. Im glad we finished up when we did, it was almost time to take a break and go for a swim! thumbsup

 

[Strike Zone]

Scott:

Way to go. What a great day you and Shawn had. I am hoping to head up that way on Thur. or Fri. with our grandson and a friend. Neither has ever caught a kokanee so I hope the fish are cooperative.
Denny

 

[old guy jess]

Oh, that's good news!

I've been hoping the bite would start, it's been soooooo slow this year. Can't wait to get up there.

What a great day you had!

Jess

 

[Mudinchev]

What a great way to spend 4th of July!! and Kick off a 4 day weekend, It was a bit slower than our last trip we had to work for them and a lot of smaller fish this trip, We couldn't zero in on the big ones for some reason. 40-60 feet deep.

 

[Mudinchev]

July 6th Merwin Limit toped off by Yale limit

Now were talking!! Found the bigguns! 55-65 feet deep but we learned that there are some submerged tree tops that are about 60 feet deep 101thumbsdown101 just west of Merwin park, we hung up the weights 2 times today when we were running in 140 feet of water! I wish they would have logged everything before they filled it up. Still though it was a GREAT DAY! 6-10:30 netted us 20 fish so we figured what the heck lets buzz up to Yale and see if we can top off the cooler. We haven't been up there yet this year, I thought about launching at the dam and seeing if we could find some fish, but with the sketchy reports I thought we better try out some of our old hot spots by Yale Park. To say the bite was good was an understatement, we fished for a half hour and had our 12 fish in the small bay just west of Yale Park, we didn't even make a full loop in the bay! 25 and 30 feet deep and we couldn't keep 4 rods in the water. Shasta sling blades and pink hoochies are still killing it!