Fishing in King County (Seattle, Kent: home, to live, move)

[bigtrees]

Are there any fisherman on here?

Where do you like to go fishing in King County?

I work at Boeing-Seattle so the Duwamish River is handy. (We can hold the jokes about those fish being fireproof, happy, and anti-corrosive.) Green River in Auburn in also handy.

I can surely go to many of the pothole lakes around here (Lake Moneysmith, Lake Holm, Lake Tapps, etc, etc) but not sure if there is any good fishing in those lakes.

Any other good places to go? Appreciate your suggestions.

[70Ford]

I don't have a boat, but me and the kids have good luck at Pine Lake park...especially at the beginning of the rainbow trout season. We just fish off the dock. I take a lead weight and put it on the bottom of the line, then put a hook about 18 inches up and few salmon eggs on it, give it a flip about 15 -30 feet out...get the line nice and taut so I can feel them mouthing on it...

....wait about 5 minutes. POW! (If I recall, they stock it with 14,000 trout before the season starts.)

Fun stuff. One thing I noticed were there were some people there with children so small that they pretty much had no idea what they were doing (like 2 or 3 years old)...but they were "catching" their limit, if by "catching" you mean a man/woman hanging, retrieving, and putting the fish in the cooler while the children played. I would call it "Extended family of seven getting 35 trout." Don't get me wrong, I love it when families teach their kids how to live off the land. It was pretty obvious they were milking it.

I don't recommend Lake Sammamish. At least not shore fishing. The boat landing place is totally busy, there's no place to fish - too shallow - too noisy. There's another park entrance with a swimming area where the water seemed to be about 2 feet deep for like..ever. . The water is just so shallow next to shore. I've never caught anything there, anyway.
http://www.wogameandfish.com/fishing...ng/WO_0306_01/

One thing I might could recommend is clamming. It's not as hard as you would think and really fun, if you have a strong back. Just get there at low tide. Digging clams while the tide comes in is no fun. That water is cold when it washes over your wading boots.

Digging Clams

[bigtrees]

Wow! We have a lot of fisherman on here!

[Haakon]

Lake Tapps is in Pierce county, but it has some very good fishing and is one of the few places in WA you can fish for muskies. There are tons of bass in the lake too. Summer can be rough there, unless you go very early in the morning - way to many water skiers and pleasure boaters.

Lake WA can be good fishing too, there are about ten million perch in the lake and the season is open year round.

If you want to head out a bit further to Kent, Lake Sawyer has some very large bass.

Cottage Lake near Woodinville has some good fishing, and has a decent fishing and has a long dock to fish from.

Any lake the state stocks is going to have decent fishing, at least at the beginning of the season.
WDFW -- Region 4 - North Puget Sound: Annual Catchable Trout Plants

[jinj]

Lake Wilderness has Bass I have heard. There are bunch of lakes around you, try the many smaller county ones like Lake Walker or Deep lake at Nolte park.

[70Ford]

Anyone ever fished for squid?

Being an ex-Georgia boy, I have a lot of experience shore fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, particulary on St. George Island. You'd get a stout rod and reel and some 20(ish) lb test line and get some live (or dead shrimp), put an oz. or two of lead on the bottom end of the line and a hook about 18 - 24 inches up. Put on a piece of shrimp, cast it as far as it would go into the surf and - if you were lucky- you'd get whiting or spotted trout. Many times, you'd get a sea catfish or a baby shark or a grunt. Sometimes, you'd even get a crab. You get more crabs with cut bait, though. More whiting and trout in the surf. More flounder in the rocky spots, along the bridge. (There are spots where the bridge is anchored where you can park and fish.)

I've tried fishing from a pier in Seattle, but I had no idea what to use...I used salmon eggs. Heh, so what? I didn't know what to use. It didn't work. The water at the pier was so shallow! Then..at the edge of dusk, like 7-8 people showed up, in full rain gear. I'm thinking Hrmm? as they put on full waders? and some seriously heavy coats. They had small buckets. We were going back home and one guy asked us...any squid? And I'm thinking what? squid? what? And then my family went back to the car, but I stayed a minute and watched them start jigging bright silvery spoons with silvery tails and BAM! Dude caught a squid.

Squid. It's what's for dinner.

Wonder what else you can catch from shore. I like fishing the ocean. Anyone got any pointers or places of interest. (Hopefully also has something [nature, walking trail] that my wife and daughter would like to do. Me and my boy, we can endure. My wife doesn't like fishing. My daughter gets bored easily.

Oh well, just thought I'd throw it out there and see what I could catch.

Thanks for your input!

[70Ford]

Hit Beaver Lake tonight with my son. Fished from about 2:30 to five. (It got too dark to see and park closes at dusk.) I used every color of salmon egg you can imagine. I even used the day glo blue/orange/yellow/green/flaked powerbait. Nada. My son was using earthworms on a bobber about 20-30 feet from shore...not one nibble!

I fished off the bottom about 1 & 1/2 feet above the weight. Had 3 good bites as the sun was going down (I switched to earthworms, heh - why not?) slung it out about 100 feet... bites were almost immediate), ' round 4:30 - 5 Pm. One guy coming in with his kayak said they caught a 12 lbr. He didn't say what and looked offended that I asked. One guy on my left caught a nice trout. But he was there before I got there, and left about 15 minutes before we did.

[Haakon]

12 pounder? And we wonder how fishermen get a reputation for tall tales....

The record WA large mouth is 11lbs 9oz, record smallmouth 8lbs 12oz. At least you know there are fish in there, and some decent sized ones.

[70Ford]

I've started a new thing. I say "hello" "how ya doin'" and "good morning/afternoon/evening" to everyone who makes eye contact with me, just to see how they respond. In Georgia, it's quite common to say, "Caught any?" The wary angler will respond with, "Caught a few." Which means he's caught a few..or - if he's like my father - more like 50. Then you follow up with "How big?" "Can I see 'um? "Woah! Nice catch!" and you both nod knowingly. (If your like my father, you'd more likely say ,"Naw, ain't nothing to see." Then he would beam with pride when he showed you the catch. He was pretty good at self deprecation.)

We don't ask where they caught them...that would be rude. But we do ask if they caught any. I thought most fisherman did this.

That fella looked at me like I was some new form of coackroach.

BWAHAHA.. bring it on, 12 lbr dude!

[70Ford]

Question. Is it normal to let the trout nibble a bit or to pull hard when you feel the first gentle nibble? The fish that hit tonight hit it pretty hard (Rod tip bent about 4 inches) and I'd snatch...but every time was a miss. I've caught them with the "Gentle nibble/snatch" method at Pine Lake (Where you pull out a bit of line and hold it between your fingers to feel 'em mouthing on it, then snatch at the first gentle vibration). I thought tonight might've been a bass I was tossin' into. I'm pretty good with a reel..been fishing as long as I can remember...and I was putting it the same place (within 5 feet or so) of each cast. I noticed no one there was fishing that way. They just threw it out, got the line tight and propped it up. They never moved the bait, either. I move it after a few minutes , or so (5-10 minutes, I'd guess). Is that wrong?

I've only fished for trout a few times, so I'm still a greenhorn. Doesn't matter that we didn't catch anything tonight. It was 2 and 1/2 hours of pure peace. Ducks splashing down, fish dimples/strikes on the water, people standing together and fishing and shooting the breeze with their companions. Me and my son had a good time.

Thanks for any tips.