Surface temp at 70F to 71F. There were over a dozen other sport fishers out on this cool and cloudy Mid June Saturday. With 100,000 grain fed adult Atlantic Salmon finning around Puget Sound looking for someone to throw them dinner, I was thinking that there wouldn't be too much interest in this freshwater fishery today... but I was wrong.

Harts lake is mostly 35 feet to 45 feet deep in the middle with modest shallows and a fairly steep dropoff to deep water. Most of the shoreline is lily pads, except for where half a dozen or so homes have lake access.
A lot of the bottom is so soft that it won't return a ping from my depthfinder, but there are also extensive areas where the bottom is very solid and the depth finder reading was strong.

I had planned to fish for brown bullheads, but the lake looked so "bassy" I couldn't resist trolling the dropoffs with various medium to deep running crankbaits... but alas... no success. Noticed one young man land what appeared to be a bullhead that was about 10" long. At one point another bass fisherman hailed me over to take a picture of a very healthy looking 4 to 5 pound largemouth he had just landed. It was released after the photo session.

Water in the lake is slightly brown (tannic acid I believe), but otherwise seems clean and the food chain seems healthy. I would think Harts Lake to be very productive for good sized bullheads and panfish as long as "catch and release" is practiced on the larger bass.

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