It’s panfish season across Southwest Washington right now. With a summer sun warming the water, and the long days providing excellent insect production, the smallish but plentiful fish are feeding heavily.
Easy to catch, and prolific at reproduction, the action can be very fast once you find the schools.
They are called panfish for a good reason. These fish are tasty on the table, and the ease of catching them makes them a perfect fish to teach children the art of fishing. They are also plentiful in Region 5.
“Panfish are everywhere, but there definitely are some highlights on where to go for them,“ said Stacie Kelsey of the WDFW Inland Fishes Program.
She pointed to Silver Lake, northeast of Castle Rock, where a three-year effort to improve the crappie fishing has shown signs of success. The lake’s crappie were over populated, resulting in small, stunted fish.
“We transferred out about 10,000 crappie over a three year period to east side lakes because the fish were small,” she said. “Over the last few months the sizes have been phenomenal, really gorgeous for the west side.”
Crappie are known for their spring spawning bite, and in Silver Lake they fish best from late spring through early summer, when they gather in the lakes many canals. But Kelsey reports that anglers are still getting them in the main lake. This late in the season its mostly a boat fishing show, with the fish taking twist-tail plastic jigs in bright colors, and worms in deeper water.
The lake also sports other panfish species, many of which can be caught from the bank. These include bluegill, and yellow perch. While the perch have been a bit small this year, the bluegill are pretty fair sized. The fish will take a lot of small lures and flies, but it can be hard to beat tempting them with a worm beneath a bobber.
Anglers can also head to the Silver Cove Resort, where anglers can pay a small fee to fish from the resort’s docks. A great place to target crappie early in the season, the canals still offer plenty of other panfish during the summer months.
Vancouver Lake, in the city’s back yard, is another good spot for panfish, and some of them are really nice.
“If you have a boat, one of the best places for white crappie is the area near the mouth of Burnt Bridge Creek on the southeast part of the lake,” said Kelsey. “It’s not really good shore access, but there is good shore fishing near the Felida Ramp.”
The Felida Ramp is located where the Lake River forms the outflow from the lake.
“Really the best bank fishing is near the Felida Ramp,” continues Kelsey. “You can get some really nice bluegill there and some pretty good black crappie. It’s really good fishing overall, for channel catfish, bullheads, black and white crappie, and yellow perch.”
Anglers target the fish with a variety of methods and baits, but for the newcomer the ease of fishing worms below a bobber is hard to beat. If you fish the worms on the bottom, you may get lucky and land a channel catfish, or other species. There are also largemouth bass, and they often run big.
There is a small fee to park at the ramp, and that allows you access to a lot of good bank fishing areas. Look to the shoreline south of the ramp.
Lacamas Lake is another good local lake for panfish. The lake just east of Vancouver offers a good population of nice sized panfish.
“Lacamas lake has a lot of really nice yellow perch,” said Kelsey. “The best spot would be east of the old WDFW boat ramp.”
Other good spots include the county boat ramp, and the area near the bridge between Lacamas and Round Lake.
She reports anglers do a lot of fishing worms beneath a bobber here, and sometimes they rig the worm with weights to fish them just off the bottom. However, the lake’s thick vegetation can make fishing the bottom tough in places.
There are also some crappie and bluegill in the lake, but most of these are taken incidentally. There are not enough of these species present to really target them specifically.
Both Lacamas and Vancouver Lake are prone to blooms of blue-green algae. Most access points are posted with warnings when there are outbreaks. When the blooms arrive its best to stay out of the water, and keep dogs and other pets away.
Kress Lake, near Kalama, is another good spot to target panfish, and anglers there can find not only bluegill and pumpkinseed, but warmouth as well. Warmouth look very much like bluegill, but they have brown bars along their sides, and dark vermiculations on a light background. This is another lake that has a lot of vegetation, and most of the panfish can be found along any area clear of the weeds, but mostly near the shoreline.
An often-overlooked hotspot for panfish is the Columbia River. Known more for other, larger species, the river has a strong populations of yellow perch, which can be found in dips along the rocky reefs, as well as in the back coves and sloughs. The river demands a boat for the best summer fishing, but it can produce the largest panfish found in local waters.
Small jigs tipped with bits of worms can work, and simply fishing worms on the bottom with lead weights can be effective as well.
With most lowland lakes too warm for trout, and the best runs of salmon still a few weeks away, panfishing can offer a fun day of classic summer time fishing, and these are the perfect species for introducing kids to the sport. The waters listed here are only a few of the local waters that support these species, and now is a great time to give it a try.
