Northwest Fishing Reports

It's been years since I've been able to lake fish, but have recently bought a used 20 motor home and a 12' aluminum boat with a 6hp motor. I live near Anacortes and am trying to find a lake I can troll for trout with the motor, (and has some trout) I also flyfish.

Ideally I would like to find a campground where I could take the motor home and my truck w/boat trailer to camp and fish for a weekend or overnight.

I want to stay close to home or at least Skagit county (this side of the mountains at first to check out my setup.

Baker lake has a terrible reservation system, campsites available for Monday, but reserved for Tuesday through the following weekend! And from what I read, a (1) vehicle per site limit, ( I don't want to try to launch a 12' boat with a 20' motorhome, or I will probably end up on You tube!) so I really need the Dakota there too.

I am fairly new to Skagit county & have buried my spare time the last few years in work as a firefighter and getting set up for retirement soon, so I am really out of touch.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

You can have more than one vehicle at Baker, but you will have to pay an extra $9/night for each vehicle. I made reservations way back in March and got one of the last campsites available, so weekends get booked up pretty fast during sockeye season. We stayed at Horseshoe Cove and had a truck with trailer, suv with boat, and another suv. They also have some 1st come, 1st serve sites. Checkout is at 2pm so if you get there before that you might have a chance.

One place my family used to fish is Lake Erie every opening day for a few years. We would camp at Deception Pass and drive to the lake early morning. They usually get a lot of larger fish planted there. We haven't done that in a few years. There is also Cranberry Lake which is at Deception pass state park. I have never had any luck fishing there though. We would usually fish Lake Erie, then head over to Heart Lake which is pretty close by. Good luck out there.

Deception Pass camping is a great Idea. Erie, Heart, and Campbell are all nearby. Cranberry is in the park itself, and I have had moderate to good success there (chance at a monster brown) but gas motors are prohibited there.

Up Hwy 20 there is Grandy Lake that has a campground, as well as camping nearby at Rasar State Park.

Some camping areas near Cavanaugh (very primitive camping areas).

If your motor is 4 stroke, go farther up hwy 20 to Gorge Lake (campground NE side of lake) or Diablo to Colonial Creek Campground. I think 2 strokes are prohibited on both.

Thanks a bunch Scraig and Josh!

I fished Lake Mcmurray Last weekend and got some decent trout and bass. Thats not too far from ya. Only has a boat launch though. Im more familiar with the 7 lakes in Snohomish County, Which Goodwin, Ki, Martha, Shoecraft, and Crabapple all produce some good trout. Goodwin (which I grew up on) by far has the best boat launch of those and I catch the larger trout in that lake fishing the deeper holes on the south side with power bait or pop gear. You can camp at Goodwin but as JoshH knows there can be lots of pleasure boats and choopy water on nice weekends.
Good Luck!

fisherman92 wrote:I fished Lake Mcmurray Last weekend and got some decent trout and bass. Thats not too far from ya. Only has a boat launch though. Im more familiar with the 7 lakes in Snohomish County, Which Goodwin, Ki, Martha, Shoecraft, and Crabapple all produce some good trout. Goodwin (which I grew up on) by far has the best boat launch of those and I catch the larger trout in that lake fishing the deeper holes on the south side with power bait or pop gear. You can camp at Goodwin but as JoshH knows there can be lots of pleasure boats and choopy water on nice weekends.
Good Luck!

Yea Wenberg is definitely closer than anything up hwy 20, and you can use it as a base to hit all the lakes around there.

Thank you guys! I spent the night up on the sauk and fly fished, but no bites, guess it's still too early.
We are planning for a quiet campsite on a lake this coming weekend, I am not very good with crowds, so I will hope to find someplace out of town. If yu guys are ever up La Conner Way, Let me know! I'll toss you a crab for your guidance!

Id be heading up baker or shannon to fish for kokanee lots of free camping out that way then if ya wanna go further up theres gorge or diablo lake with some campgrounds spread thruout the area. If ya need to stay close look no futher than campbell lake.. great trout fishing and excellent warmwater fisheries with a chance at a big catfish.