Northwest Fishing Reports

anybody fish this place before? i am thinking of going to camp here for a friday-sat trip and doing some fishing here. looked at the reports but there arent many.

id also like some ideas on a local place (within 1-2 hours of tacoma) that i can go to do a little camping and fishing.

I just got back from duck lake in ocean shores. There is camping at a state park in ocean shore but not on the lake. We did really well for bass, considering we were fishing for pan fish. We caught a few bass over 2lbs just using jigs and floating rapalas.

We stopped off at lake Sylvia in Gray harbor on the way home. We caught a nice 2lb bass from there just shore fishing. It is a very nice state park.

Alder lake in Lewis county has a pretty nice campground and a lot of bass cover and good fishing.

Tanawax in pierce county has a good camping area and bass

Offut in Thurston has a good population of bass and a really nice little resort with campsite

Deep lake in Thurston county is also a pretty nice bass lake. It is in Millerslyvania state park. I have been going there for years and it is a great state park with a lot of woods

Most of these places are with in a hour drive of tacoma

I hit Nahwatzel at least once during the winter months. It's one of those "year round" lakes with regular plants and I can usually count on at least one larger plant in the 14 to 16 inch range. For trout I just troll a white tbs around with very little weight. Not sure why white is the color that works best for these planters but it's the color I have had the best luck with.

There's supposed to be a lot of bass and bluegill in the lake also, but there's too much else going on in the summer to spend to much time at these kinds of lakes.

3 sides of nahwatzel are crowded to the shoreline with beach homes and the north side is simpson timber property (e.g. it's private)... The public ramp is very limited as is shore access. There is a regular group that iikes to fish from the shore at the ramp but the bottom line on this lake is "no camping" (at least that I've ever noticed) and you need some kind of flotation device. It should be noted however that Schaefer state park on the upper Satsop River is a short drive to the west of this location. But I'm not really sure if it has camping or not. I drove by it a few years back but can't remember if there were camping spots.


Lots of places to camp within an hour of Tacoma though. Excellent camping facilities at the East and West ends of Riffe Lake in addition to the many options mentioned by gpc. I've checked out Deep Lake in particular and it should be really good for bluegill and largemouth right about now. I believe there are camping spots at Alder Lake also but I've never been all that impressed with alder reservoir in regards to it's fishing productivity.

alder lake is that lake up down Hwy 7 towards Elbe right? the one with the lighter blue color water from the glacier water? i thought the water would be too cold for bass.

tanwax is right in my backyard so i think i am looking for something further.

do any of these places have boat rentals? thats another thing i should have added.

BTW, gpc: you had asked about kokanee in clear lake, pierce cty. i replied that if you needed a guy to go out there with one morning to let me know. i know of a great spot to catch kokes there, as well as a few good bass.

deep lake in thurston looks pretty awesome. not too big of a lake, lots of camping sites, showers, kitchens, lots of bass for me, lots of bluegill for my gf, plenty of shore fishing, boat rentals. might have to go here.

you guys like deep lake?

Yep thats alder I have never actually fished it bass, but there are some in there. Alder dosnt have boat rentals, I dont even think there is a resort. But if you want to do some trout fishing mineral is right down the road and they rent row boats for $20 a day. Offut also rents boats, and for a good price too, you can get a row boat for I think $16 for 4 hours and a motor boat for I think $30 for 4 hours. Offuts kind of cool too because it has a good pop. of large mouth and a few small mouth, the small mouths are like trophy fish. Deep lake has the rental boats too, but ther kind of a rip off. I think its $8 a hour for a row boat. But the state park is beautiful. Its for families, nature walk, swimming area ya know. What we usually do is stay at Deep lake, then rent a boat at offut and do most of our fishing there. But we mostly fish for trout there. But there is some good bank access and nice fish at deep lake. I have been going to deep lake for about 15 years, great place. Offut and deep are only about 10 miles away. Another option for you to rent a boat is at Tanawax. Its not the camping experience, but would be perfect for a day trip for you. They rent boats for $3.50 an hour. I am actually going to mineral for a week next Sunday and all next week Im going to be at the potholes. Will the kokes still be biting when I get back?

kokes were biting for us last year the whole season at clear. july will be no problem

Tacoma City Light has a very nice campground on Alder Lake. It also has a nice boat ramp and even a fishing dock. Bass fishing there has been a real challange for me -- so much so I have never landed an Alder Lake bass. It does however have some pretty good perch fishing.