I thought the trouters poisoned that lake off a couple years ago to kill all the spiny rays??

there are no smallmouth in Sprague, only largemouth, and there's not very many of those. The idea is for the lake to grow into a trophy largemouth fishery, but that's years away. i won't even consider going bass fishing at Sprague until about 2015 at the earliest.

WDFW rehabbed the lake a couple years ago and replanted with rainbow, LMB, channel cats, perch, crappie, & bluegill. Walleye and SMB were not restocked.

my understanding after talking dfw bio tha the did not restock walleye

kalous1, If your texting that you think Sprague was "not stocked with Walleye", then that is what "hewesfisher" said. No Walleye. No Smallmouth re-introduced into Spraque lake.

misread it excuse my ignorance

I am so excited for the fishing to be as good as it was 4 years ago at Sprague...it was awsm...limits all the time...loved the walleye there never had a problem getting limits....but sadly they are no more...apparently nobody but walleye fishermen knew how to catch them....and I cant wait for 2015 when the largemouth fishing will finally be slightly above par....the history of this lake is so so sad....catfish used to be abundant and awsm as well...the problem wasn't quality of fish in my opinion (except the crappie were actually pretty stunted)...it was quality of fishermen...apparently the fish were too smart so they are re-stocking it with fish with lower IQ's so that its easier to catch them......I am not upset....it was just one of my favorite places to always catch fish...I am sure it will far exceed all of our expectations in 5-10 years... at least I hope...

Yes, there are SM in Sprague. I've caught a total of 4 in the last few years. Usually on a worm, on the bottom. And yes, I've caught enough LM and SM to know the difference. Not common at all, but they are in there. Wish I'd taken a picture to prove it.

2015 are you kidding? They planted 14000 adult largemouth in late 2008 and 4000 more in 2009. Sure the lake isn't crawling with lunkers but in 2010 according to Chris Donley they averaged 1.5 to 2 lbs with some in the 3-4+ range, and this testing was done by shocking the water and collecting stunned fish then releasing them after collecting data. So by late spring this year early fall i will be going after the bass i know are there.