I've been fishing Lake Washington every monday for 15 years now - and I am stumped!  So let me paint you a picture and let me know what you think...

Fall usually means the fish are spread out in many depths.  Sure enough, in the past two weeks I have caught them along the shore out to 40 feet deep.  Typically the perch start to ball up and move out (following the bait fish) and the bass follow them.  Well, sure enough the perch are starting to ball up in small schools BUT they are still holding to the weed edges in 20 feet. (Caught a million of them!)  And here's the mystery - I can't find a large smallmouth ANYWHERE!  I'm catching dink after dink (less than 2 pounds) until I'm going crazy!

Oh sure, everytime I go out, the darn North wind is blowing (which typically slows the catching down), but apparently the dinks don't seem to understand that this fall.  I've hit every shallow, medium, and deep hole (secret holes) I know of and can't find a decent fish.  So where did they go?

1) I have always known that the larger bass show up in the shallows first in the spring, and the small ones follow, and have always assumed the large fish were the first to go out deeper in the fall, (again small fish following).  So how do I explain the small guys being caught in the 40 foot level already.  Do you think the big guys went deeper or are just tight mouthed n the shallows?

2)  Which begs another question: Is it possible that only the big fish are tight mouthed during the North wind times, and the small fish aren't?  That has never been my experience up to now!  When the fish get lock jaw, don't ALL the fish get lock jaw?

3)  With the perch still up along the weed edges, why would the large bass already go out deep so quickly?  I don't think they all could have exited so quickly, do you?  What would they eat out there?  Not a single cloud of sticklebacks or perch were seen out in the deeper water on the sonar!  So... Where are the big fish?

I'm puzzled!  I've been out 4 times in the past two weeks (fished from dark to dark) - and put in a lot of hours and caught tons of dinks!  I've had several other boats tell me the same thing - only dinks.  After 15 years of fishing on this Lake, I've always managed a couple of large fish every day out - and now I'm catching bait!  Come on, bass professors, give me the intellectual benefits of your bass fishing brains and toss me a couple of theories to chew on.  What do you think?

Hey Rev,

I've got a couple of things to chew on... First, I would rule out the lake turning over because it usually stays stratified until late November or even December. Lake Washington needs a really big windstorm before the thermocline goes away.

Everything fish-related seems to be a couple of weeks behind this year. Whether it is due to the late-warming spring or extra summer weather we are having right now, the fish seemed to have spawned later (or at least over a longer period of time than usual), and the usual algae blooms either happened way earlier or way later than usual depending on the lake. In rivers, salmon don't seem to be following their usual timing, either.

Anyways, I tend to believe that fishing for bigger fish gets really hard when there is a lot of food available. I think with the sunny skies and warm weather, the usual prey fish suspects haven't moved out to their fall/winter haunts yet. That could explain not seeing bait on the depthfinder. Also, a lot of the bait is really big right now because the fish that spawned in the spring have had a chance to grow all summer. Chew on this: if most of the available bait right now is larger, less of it may be available to the smaller fish, so they are biting more aggressively on the stuff you are offering them. The bigger fish though, still have tons of bait available to them.

There's another interesting thing about Lake Washington: longfin smelt. They typically spawn in February-March and begin to look very tasty to bass around this time of year. Before this time of year they are larval and really translucent. Now they are bigger, more colorful, and easier for bass to see. You'll also see perch start to nail them now, too. The extra interesting part is that for unknown reasons, smelt abundance is cyclical in Lake Washington. During even years, there is a stronger class of spawning fish. That means that in the autumn of even years there are a lot more smelt than during odd years, sometimes as much as 10 times more. Maybe, just maybe, those big bass have a lot of smelt to feast on. Smelt are typically schooled in open water, and if the big bass are keying on them, they may be suspended under those schools. But, you mentioned that you haven't been seeing bait. So... maybe not... but heck, it sounds interesting. 

If the big bass aren't suspended right now, then my guess is that they are feeding heavily on the abundant bait right now in the typical haunts you know and are turning their noses at most artificial lures. If you see smallmouth spitting up smelt, let me know!!!

Actually, I take everything back. I think you should just look for largemouth. HA!

Chris

I Chuck....being a simple mind.....check that .....being mindless, have another theory.......
It's the Beard Chuck.
I would like to propose that we send out 10 people in separate boats....
4 bearded....
4 clean shaven....
how or where they fish should not matter if my theory plays out just to fish for equal time on the water.

oh.......
the other two boats would be Women......
Shaven or not who should outfish the whole lot and shall be used as the control group!

Can you say jerk baits in that smelt color

Russ

Smelt are a separate species from threespine sticklebacks:

http://www.unb.ca/cri/projects/Fish_key/Gasterosteidae/3_spine_MG.htm

In Lake Washington, stickleback, smelt, perch, sculpin, and juvenile salmon are the main prey fish for smallmouth. Early in the season (March-May) salmon are really important as they move out of the Cedar and Sammamish River and head out to the middle of the lake or Puget Sound. After that, perch, stickleback, sculpin, and smelt become more important to their diets. Of course, crayfish are always important, too.

Here's a little more smelt background:
Smelt spawn in the Cedar and Sammamish Rivers from February-March. Larval smelt hatch in the spring and swim around the lake as small, clear larval fish through the summer. As fall approaches, they gain their typical silvery coloration and continue to rear in Lake Washington for another year and a half or so until they spawn at age 2. After spawning, they die. Some longfin smelt populations migrate to the ocean to rear, but the Lake Washington fish stay in the lake. Like I said in a previous post, there are usually a greater amount of spawners in even years versus odd years.

Chris

Chris- You are wealth of information!  Now all we need is to have Danny Garrett come back from Missouri to add his take-It's sure nice having a fish biologist in our club...Thanks Chris for all your insight.

Bob

Sarge, you beat me to that punch line . 

While I do not fish Lake Wa much at all, ok, NOT at all, I think that Rev should borrow your Pink Princess rod you had on display at Potholes.  That is, if Terry will let you borrow it, Rev.

You Huskies are sure smart, Sarge.  Too bad they can't study film on an opponents offensive tendacies.  Maybe you should offer to breakdown some game film for Coach Willingham, they could use your analytical abilties right about now.

All I can say is I feel a lot better after reading this I have been on the lake 4 times & the same results as the REV I thought I just sucked but now I see its all the REVs fault