Washington State spawn season?

[ETXbassassassin]

Gonna take a trip up to Washington state and want to catch the spawn. My cousin ( fishing-buddy ) moved up north on me. I was curious if any members here live in the Longview area? What time of year do smallies spawn, or what water temperature do they prefer? I'm assuming it would be relatively close to what largies prefer. Something around 60 degrees. I've heard the Columbia river has a great small mouth fishery. Anyone know of any hot spots? Fish on and tight lines Thanks in advance

[3dkicker]

I don't live in WA but my sister does and the water temp is related to the weather. A couple years ago I went out to visit in the third week of June. The week before I arrived it snowed. I left VA and it was 90 degrees. I arrived in Vegas and it was 102 degrees. I landed in Spokane and it was 54 degrees. That was the high. Water temps were in the low 50's. They almost cancelled the Ironman in Idaho due to the water temps being too cold.
My guess is that the smallies will spawn in late May and June. Largemouth in June to July.

[ETXbassassassin]

Thanks 3d I was starting to think that no one has ever fished Washington state lol. Anyone else with any hot spots on the Kalex or Columbia river please chime in. You'll have my attention; I'm all eyes 8)

[Fish-N-Fool]

I fish Eastern Washington and N. Idaho a lot because I live there, or is it here. lol

The weather you refer to is not the norm here. That was a freak year. As a matter of fact many bass died that year because they were so stressed out from the cold water temps when they needed to be spawning. It was a very weird year At first things looked great in early April the snow was gone and I thought we would have an early spawn and some great fishing. Fish moved onto beds, then everything went haywire and it got super cold and stayed cold. Because they were getting ready to spawn and then couldn't it really hit some lakes hard and we lost as many as 1/3 the spawners in most waters. My favorite little lake/pond lost about 80% of it's fish. I saw fish in the river still trying to spawn in early August!!!! That was a very hard year on the fish and me too cause the fishing sucked!!!!

Most years the spawn starts about early May for the L.M., but some years it is early June. S.M. sometimes are a few weeks earlier or about the same time.

Take a look at my post in the Bragging board section under "Fish-N-Fool year in review" to see what bass fishing is really like most years here in N. Idaho and Eastern Wash.

Smallies up here spawn at about 58 Deg and Larges at about 62. And yes the Columbia has some great SM fishing. Like anywhere you need to know the river to find good fish in most cases, but if you can find a good eddy with some rock and a fast current going by, there will be Smallies on that current break.

Longview if I remember correctly is on the West side of the state. It doesn't get as cold there in the winter, but it also doesn't get as hot in the summer so water temps would not heat up as fast would be my guess. I don't know the west side as well so not sure of the spawn times there, but I do know where you can find out. Go here and ask you will get tons of help.


http://www.washingtonlakes.com/forum/


You will have to reg. to post I think but its free and only takes a few seconds.