Northwest Fishing Reports

So, I was at a secret lake last weekend fishing for bass. I noticed that right near me there was quite a bit of activity. I assumed that it was bass and directed my worm in the general direction. Then it dawned on me that what I'm seeing might be other fish, bluegil, crappie, perch. I never heard of anyone pulling out perch out of the lake, but I have heard about bluegil and crappie.

So, I'm new to fishing for these types of panfish. What should I use to see if I can catch some of the elusive buggers? Someone mentioned a micro-jig with a maggot on the end. How would you fish that? What else?

get some jigs in the 1/32 -1/64 size in white or yellow or in combo colors, put on some sort of bait for sent/taste keep your line tight when jigging, vary your jigging technic untill you find what the fish like best. this should get you catching some panfish. <')//<

Panfisher nailed it those are the best things to use. Iv noticed that crappie like maggots more and bluegill like worms more. But you can still catch a ton of bluegill on maggots and crappie on worms. Dont use a full worm just a small piece will work. Last weekend the jig didnt need a bait to catch fish for me, so try that too, thats pretty rare. Also if you cant get the big ones to bite upgrade to a 1/16 oz jig head. And remember a 9" crappie and a 7" bluegill are decent sized fish, and if they dont get any bigger than that at your lake, then thats not uncommon. Check the regs because there are a lot of different regs for different lakes for these fish. And make sure to bring a stringer and keep some because they taste excellent

okay so here is my magic crappie secret set up , i will give it up just because your a Bothell resident .. requires two jigs one 1/16 and other 1/32 and a pack of bait cll bass assasins belly baits .. get shad color / for rigging first tie that 1/32 and leave about 2 feet of tag line down frm it .. then tie the other jig on bottom , slip on the belly baits ..now you ready .. keep in mind that crappie feed up not down , meaning when you find them try to keep those jigs above the fish they will come and grab them .. the best way to find the dept there hitting on at first is to use the yo-yo technic .. meaning allow your to fall to the bottom and slllooowwwly reel back up till you get a strick .. once you get a strirck i like to get a marker and mark the spot on line right above your spool .. that way you can just from that point just release line back down to the same dept over and over .. this technic works every where i find cappie and i had had great success doing this for years ... someone taught me so now im passing it on ... Good luck and Happy Hooking from BBD ... HEY i wouldnt mind fishing this place with you someday , i will not tell of it's whereabouts .. just send me a email and ill keep it hush hush !!

Kind of like bigbass dez said about using more than 1 jig but I'll use like 4 or 5 jigs, with about a foot length apart from each jig and put a bobber onto the line,then just cast it out and twitch the bobber and sit for a second and real it in and keep doing that. We do this for the crappie,if it's just bluegill try a worm.

jbball50 wrote:Kind of like bigbass dez said about using more than 1 jig but I'll use like 4 or 5 jigs, with about a foot length apart from each jig and put a bobber onto the line,then just cast it out and twitch the bobber and sit for a second and real it in and keep doing that. We do this for the crappie,if it's just bluegill try a worm.

its illegal to use more than three hooks on your line.

It's legal to use up to 3 hooks at the end of your line in freshwater, but only two in the saltchuck.

So what's the deal with these tandem rigs I see in the tackle stores with 8 or 9 little hooks on one setup????

Don't the tackle stores read the rules??

littleriver wrote:It's legal to use up to 3 hooks at the end of your line in freshwater, but only two in the saltchuck.

So what's the deal with these tandem rigs I see in the tackle stores with 8 or 9 little hooks on one setup????

Don't the tackle stores read the rules??

I know what you are talking about. I have bought them before, just to open them up and figure out.....this isnt what I wanted. They must be made somewhere down south where the number of hooks dosnt matter. But if I was a tackle salesman in WA state I wouldnt put those in my store

Thats the exact set up I bought. I bought it for catching bait fish at westport. Thank god I didnt uses it. I didnt use it because it looked like a mess LOL. I didnt know it was illegal. But that looks like it would just hammer the bluegill

they use those sabiki rigs a lot in the salt to catch herring mackeral and other baitfish for the big ones!

Hah never did know that was illegal,did it once down on silver lake when we fished down there a few years ago when we were camping there for 2 or 3 days. Some regs there told us about using that inside the canal for crappie,guess well never do that again.