Northwest Fishing Reports

I just moved to Washington State from Washington D.C. In D.C. , I learned to fish for largemouth bass on Potomac River during my college days (2001-2006). Potomac largemouth bass feed primarily on shad, perch, bluegills, and, of course, crayfish.

If I am not mistaken, there is no shad in Washington State? But, anyway, I noticed that there were some bait fish activities when I fish at Long Lake, Thurston County last Saturday. I couldn't identify the forage, are they rainbows or something else? I am not sure if the rainbows spawn before largemouth bass do.

Yea not a lot of shad around here.

Some fish that are forage in the NW for bass:

stickelback
smelt
trout
yellow perch
small sunfish
bullhead/sculpin
crayfish

I'd concentrate on those types of feed. I can't help you with the exact forage in long lake tho

Could very well be trout fry, maybe even perch or the dubious pikeminnow, aka, squawfish. Perch patterns are very successful forage fish baits, and as you mentioned, so are crawfish.

The Perch pattern is my all time favorite

Oh yea Drew cant forget the pikeminnow!

There are enough small silvery forage like smelt and juvie salmon,trout,pikeminnows so that having a silver shad pattern will still work fine around here.

There are a few shad in WA state but not many. But there are perch in just about every WA lake. In fact off the top of my head I cant name a lake with out perch. Its to the point where lakes like mineral, the caliches, lenice and others that are primarily trout lakes are infested with perch. I love eating and fishing for perch but I dont know where to find any worth while they are all stunted so a perch pattern would be your best bet

if you are goin with some cranks here silver and perch print are the best. even tho washington dont have much shad people around here still produce big bass while using a silver crank. and the other guys rite perch are all over the place. and pike minnow the freakin scum of the water are everywhere. so you dont have to worry to much about that. but trust me man stay out of lake washington for a little bit, it sucks to get skunked all the time.

not sure what rizla is talking about but lake washington is hot right now you just have to find them!!! Top bait fish are perch, baby bass, bluegill, pumpkin seeds,crappie,sculpins, sticklebacks, and trout. trout swimbaits play a huge part in the northwest for big bass. after a bass hit the 2-3 pound mark there primary food turns to smaller trout. obviously its a little different for rivers. the shad thats here inst the samekind of shad they have downsouth. the shad here get pretty big and run in the rivers. i have never heard of a shad in lake washington. of coarse anything that looks like a crayfish will work as well

LK WA main forage would be:
crayfish
perch
sculpin
longfin smelt