Article in Seattle Times 9/29/02 online edition:

Lake Washington update
The number of coho returning to the Lake Washington watershed remains low, but no emergency closure of the sport coho fishery north of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge has been made.

"There is no closure at this time, but the coho run is way down from last year," said Steve Foley, a state Fish and Wildlife biologist. "From what we've seen there hasn't been much fishing pressure at all on the lake."

Through Wednesday, about 3,300 coho had entered the lake. Biologists believe the run could be late because anglers in the Strait of Juan de Fuca continue to catch good numbers of coho.

Foley also said about 7,000 kings have entered the lake, which is not large but not bad compared with some returns of past years.

"On Tuesday we counted 50 kings spawning in Bear Creek, and more than 10,000 sockeye either dead or still alive," Foley said. "Without any recent rain I'd say that is an awful lot of sockeye spawning in the creek."

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==> Side note: Me and my dad went out on Saturday 9/28/02 and had seen a few jump, one was a fat one (don't know if Coho or Chinook though) by the sound of the splash it made. Dad caught a 2-3# Cutthroat, nice coloring. On water at 6:10 out by 10:00am. No Coho caught but seen some milling on surface. I caught a small rainbow possibly cutthroat but lost. All fish landed on coho setup (flasher and blue or red Gomokatsu hook - size unknown).

Jeff,

I can ditto your report, I was on the lake yesterday the same time you folks were. I fished from my 15' Arima trolling a new plug
called a "FAT FISH". I checked out all the usual
prime locations in the northend, only saw a couple of jumpers up by Nelson Pt. (Waverly Park area).

The perch are really schooled up. Now is the time to stock up on some fat yellow perch.

Cigar

Hey Cig!

Thanks for the confirmation. Things pretty slow on the lake no doubt. That's too bad. We really need some rain now and bad! I was surprised to see in the paper on Sunday morning 3,200+ Coho passed the locks into the lake. Dang it, if they'd only hit we'd be in business! It was a beautiful morning watching the sunrise on the lake. Picturesque!

~SFJ

Was out on the lake this evening. Can confirm this report. Even had a perch hit my Wiggle Wart! Dang thing was maxed out on the trebble hook though......now is definitely the time to catch some perch! Break out those ultra lites. Dis spot some much larger echos on the finder. Maybe a few straggler salmon? Who knows...they did not bite that is for sure!