Bluegills

[SlabKing]

The bluegills and pumkinseed sunfish are starting to fan out nest now. At Lake Union, Blueberry, and Washington the pumkinseeds are on the nest and are very easy to catch. I like to find an area that has lots of sparse under water weeds, hard bottom, and a few logs to find the largest concentration of spawning sunfish. A lot of times the sunfish will spawn on open sandy flats with sparse weeds to avoid areas that hold a lot of bass to protect themselves from becoming lunch lol :D . The same type of area that perch spawn in is were you will find the bluegills and pumkinseeds and they will often be mixed in together but a good rule to follow is that if you are catching to many perch you have found the right area but are fishing too deep. Stay in the same area but move up to water just a little more shallow and you should find the sunfish and can most times watch them on the nest and cast right to them.

For bait I like to use brown, yellow, red/wht, or black 1/64 jigs tipped with a maggot under a small bobber. I like to use maggots (spikes) because you can catch 5 or 6 fish before you have to change bait and you can cast far and not worry about your bait flinging off the hook. You can also tip the jig with worm, or just use a number 8 hook with crickets that you buy at the pet store. Cast around the edges of sparse pads and shallow weed edges and should be able to have a fishfry.

[SlabKing]

Almost double posted :D

[eric]

Well hit cassidy today,caught alot of perch,landed one small crappie and 3 little fattie sunfish,to bad they werent bluegills but I know Im on the right track.is it the weather that turned the crappie bite off? THAT is incredible about LK.WA,I have never caught crappie like that before but I know where Im heading next wknd.Is the area by the burgerking,where should I park down there?,I bought this fishing map on lk.wa.and even that mentions fishing for crappie from lk.union but I was always intimidated from the freeway looking down there,the whole area is all new to me and seems really choppy usually.Also have you noticed the crappie bite being decided by the time of day,I know evening is best but how about morning and mid day?
Man slab,its great having you back on the site,thanks again for all the info....eric

[SlabKing]

I think the weather is what's stopping the crappie bite. On again off again. On Union you can start just east of BurgerKing. If you keep heading east about 3 or 4 blocks past the BK you will see a floatplane flying lesson business on your left... right on the lake shore. Park here and you will find a huge public floating dock that's about 1 block long and has sunken docks and logjams all up and down it. The water is from 4 to 25' deep here and crappies can be caught here almost year-round with the exception of Feb and March. Now if you follow the back road that follows the eastside of the lake from where the floatplanes are at there are a ton of small public docks for you to fish from, these can all hold crappie. You will also see all the houseboats I spoke about while driving up this road and if you can find a place to launch out in here you will hit serious paydirt. Give it a try and if you have a hard time finding them I can meet you down there sometime and show you a lot of places to catch em.

Mornings are not good on Union until late summer. After 3pm until till dusk is good now and in a few weeks the large dock by BK will have crappies on it all night long. They turn on bright lights at dusk and you can see the crappie schools that are in there. It may take you a little while to find your own honeyholes but you will. When the fall comes I'll post pics and tell you were to catch hands down the largest crappies you will catch on this side of the Cascades.

[SlabKing]

I took a quick look at mapquest. The street I was refering to is called Fairview. If you look at the the map the large dock is located in the S.E corner of the lake. Let me know if you catch some, if not I'll let you in on the spot I caught mine at.

[JimmyS]

Slab King, Thank you for that great report on your trip. I enjoy fishing for and catching blue gills when they are on the bed. Sounds like you realy have a great place to fish. Good luck on your next trip. Thanks again for shareing your trip with us. Jimmy S.

[eric]

Hey slabking,Im thinking of trying lk.union tomorrow(sat),was wondering if you will be in the area and I could take you up on some of those spots?if you get this msg late and your in the area,Ill be in the spot you recommend out in a little dark green 6ft pram,give me a yell....eric