Potholes/Moses

[SlabKing]

I'm back from the Potholes with a brief report. The fishing can be summed up with one word...okay. I caught plenty of fish at every hole I fished but 96% of the fish were small. For every 10" or better crappie I caught, I had to toss back 10 to 15 5-7" crappie. The future looks good for both lakes though. There are a ton of baitfish in the water. I haven't seen it like that in over 10 years myself.





On saturday I went down to the dock at MarDon a setup some underwater lights before the sun went down. For the most part it was slow until the sun went down and the lights brought a nice school of crappie and few nice walleyes under my jigs. The smaller crappie good be seen swimming right next to the lights while the walleye and keeper size crappie stayed down about 5 feet under the lights. From about 8pm til' midnight I pulled about 45-60 crappie from the dock......only two or three where 10" or better:D. Same for the walleye. Only two of the walleye would have been big enough to keep.









Moses Lake was just plain bad on saturday. Ran into Stuckonthebank at the state park as well. I was only able to hook two decent size smallmouths. The first one tossed my lure on it's first jump. I was able to get the second one in and release. The tourney guys fishing that side of the bridge in their boats didn't look to happy when I tossed her back lol....they where having a slow day as well. Every time you'd try to casted a jig near the pilings those little 4" bass would grab your bait. I got tired of that and left to go check out the dunes.





The water level was WAY down back in the dunes. I hiked about 4 miles that afternoon checking different zipplerlip holes for bluegill and crappie. One of the better holes was near the picture above about 1/4 mile the left of this small pond there's an inlet and oulet that come in off the main channel. There's a nice beaver hut in the middle of the outlet channel that holds fish. Again, it was hard to hook a decent size fish. Out of maybe 35 bluegill caught only about 7 were bigger than 9".

Sunday was much better on Moses Lake. The crappie where biting pretty good and most were from 8-10" or so. I had to adjust my setup and fish deeper to get to them put they where in there. Caught 4 small walleye as well. All in all, I wish I would have just dragged my boat over. The lakes are already in the Fall pattern. You'll need to fish the humps and deeper flats to reach the bigger fish.

[brokentrail]

Thanks for the report and pictures Slab... Starting tomorrow I am off for a week and my dad came in from TN so we're planning to do some fishing. We'll likely hit Kapowsin, Alder and possibly run down to Silver. I may take him to The Potholes depending on time but we'll see. If we find them I'll make sure and let ya'll know. :-)

[CK14]

nice report slab. sounds like the last couple times i've been there, lots of fish, but lots of little fish. the future of the lake is looking real bright though. it's gonna be great in a few years. it can be crazy down there at night for crappie. got into a school a couple months ago and i musta caught 50 in an hour. doesn't look like the dock tourny will be short for action.

[CK14]

hey slab,

when i go to the potholes on friday i'm thinking of hitting moses from the shore first before the tourny (starts at 6:00 PM). is it possible right now to cast your bait to the pillings under the i-90 bridge from the shore? or would i have to stand on the walkway that goes over it? if that doesn't work out i think i will head up to the dunes......
thanks

[StuckOnTheBank]

You can do it on either side with no problems. The problem is keeping the 6 inch large and smallmouth bass of your jig. My eight year old probably caught 75 of them in a couple hours.

[CK14]

cool thanks stuck :D

[SlabKing]

Stuck hit the nail on the head :D. The crappie where down around 5 or 6 feet deep and the little bass everywhere lol. You have to put some weight on your rig to get your jigs down deep as quick as you can. PM sent.

[CK14]

you the man slab!