Was wondering what people's opinions are about washington spiny ray lakes? What lakes are your favorites, and for what species?

It's not Washington, but it's hard to beat Brownlee Reservoir. I am pretty much a warm water novice, but my friend Sebastes and I went last spring and caught tons of catfish 4 to 7 pounds, lots of small smallmouth and a good number of crappie. We are heading back this May.

In Washington it's hard to beat O'Sullivan Reservoir. It has great walleye, smallmouth and trout fishing, with some crappie and perch.

Got to agree, Brownlee res is one of my favorite places to fish. On another note, if it kept enough water in it over the winter, Blue gill that avg almost 1 lb can be caught at Paddock Valley res. Brownlee will be hot for Crappie this year as water conditions were good last year.

The potholes are mostly having trouble with the Bluegill and crappie pops. Even perch in some places. You can find them in the Samller lakes. Any of the okanogan lakes that have not been cleaned are full of Small mouth. My 4 year old son caught 64 SM in a couple of hours fishing off a dock using a stick with 4 feet of line and a hooked tipped with some worm last summer.


Read washington lakes reports . If you go to the Potholes just do the opposite of what Mardon reports.

I do not have a favorite place other than I want to see as few people as possible

Th Potholes (O'Sullivan ?) is a fun place. That lake has everything. Go back into the dunes and willows and you will find all the spiny ras you want. But actually my favorite lake for spiny rays is a little lake in sourthern Peirce County called Rap John. I take my float tube ouy there and catch many crappy, bass, blue gull and huge rainbows. All on the fly rod using wooly buggers.

There are several good lakes in pierce county. Rapjon was already named, but don't forget, Tanwax, Harts, Ohop, Alder, Kapowison, American, and Spanaway. Tanwax has Crappie. Harts has bluegill, crappie, perch, and channel cats. Ohop has bluegill, crappie, and bullheads. Alder has perch, crappie, and bullheads. Kapowison has just about everything. Nice big lake, tons of cover, no boat access yet for anything but car toppers the last time I was there. American has tons of perch. Spanaway has rockbass, perch, bullheads.

Silver Lake in Pierce Co. has huge bass (up to 6 pounds!), perch, and bullheads. Not to mention big browns and rainbows too!

Cast a line to : Washingtonlakes.com at the bottom of this page for the inside skinny

Well thankyou, Slabquest.

"Lakes? Did someone say lakes?"

There is a section on my site called "Warm Water Fish" (actually info from WDFW). The nice part is I've added links from lakes on their lists to lake reports on my site. So you can quickly scan various lakes in a county for warm water species and then click on the name to go to reports posted on that particular lake. Hope this helps.

i'll give another vote to potholes reservoir...though it does seem to be having lots of problems with the spiny ray populations as well as moses lake in the last 10 years or so. last i checked they put in a 20 fish limit on perch at potholes. probably the guys at mar don trying to get the fish hogs off their docks(they'd have some people come and take 150+ perch in a good day).

i think the winds may be changing on this one though. i haven't caught a decent sized perch or bluegill at potholes in several years. maybe they just don't hang around the docks any more and you have to chase them into the dunes? i must say though, the smallmouth fishing more than makes up for it...the last time i was there i caught nearly 50 fish in less than 2 hours. i was fishing along the dam face and the smallies were literally taking my jig on every cast, as soon as it hit the water. you could cast it out and set the hook, and there would already be a fish on.

i fished the part of riffe lake where the cowlitz runs in back in august and did great on smallmouth and largemouth. right under the fishing bridge at taidnapam(?) park, it has a rocky basalt shoreline that just screams smallmouth on it.

as for westside spiny ray lakes, my favorite is probably hicks or st. clair. hicks is a good all around lake in the spring and fall, and st. clair has huge perch in it.