Howie...The smallies should be moving up into isoalated back bays on Lake washington right now. As the water temps approach the upper 50's, Male smallmouth should be looking for thier beds and preparing for thier larger ladies to move up from deeper water to procreate. I like throwing brown or summer green Crawfish colored 1/4 oz or 1/2 oz Speed trap Luhr Jensen crankbaits on Lake Washington as a searchbait. If I pop a fish or two, I typically slow down and pitch the area with a 3 1/2" power tube in off white, smoke/gold or greenpumpkin with 1/0 lite wire bass hooks and a 1/8th oz bullet sinker. Sight fishing gets easier as the weather warms. Key on water from 4" to 12 feet in back bays and boat lanes adjacent to deeper dropoffs, and spot fish isolated chunk rock with your polorized glasses. Key on the shaded side of concrete retainer walls along boat slip lanes and pay particular attention to the ends of those slips next to docks. Smallies will be holding tight to those walls and be hiding ,waiting to ambush thier prey from inside the shade.Don't forget to bring some Berkley Gulp minnows too. I like to fish the 4" smelt and chartruese minnows on a 1/8th oz florescent white jighead, so I can see them better-and when they disapear suddenly while they're in a bed- set the hook! The Jigmiester

great reply Jigmiester. me and howard will be fishing Enatai quite often this summer. hoping to catch some bass :)

Were the perch and bluegills large? i thought perch werent around in the shallows till July. Were you at a public marina?

the perch were relatively small...roughly 6-8 inches or so. bluegills were mostly small too other than one , 8"-10" or so, that put up a great fight. the marina was private i believe...we have access from a friend who lives there.

which marina???

Thanks for the report. Good job catching spring time panfish

i dont usually fish for perch or bluegill, but as it seems right now bass, which is wat i usually fish for, had not transitioned to shallower waters yet. for this reason i am very desprate to catch anything possible, but i have no idea of wat bait to use for these perch or bluegill. can anyone help?

Thanks jigmiester, great advice. will def take into account next time i go bass fishing. i use to more of a trout, salmon, panfish kind of angler, so been trying to stock up on some bass gear.

went to the marina near the montlake bridge, i used some really small jigs, that worked fairly well for me. yeah, i was really suprised that panfish were biting this early.

stk206: if you wanna catch any fish, you should try trout. they are really biting at pine lake right now, power bait works miracles. i jus got a little tired of catching trout, so was trying to broaden my horizon. cant wait for bass to move into the shallows though. currently, no boat or anything, so gota fish from the shore, which i heard decreases my chances dramatically. =( but gona keep trying! =) good luck

although i would love to fish at pike lake.....i also want to just keep my fishing trips within lake washington so if you have any goood news about fish in shallows in lake washington please tell me. thanks