4/16-'Lower Lake'

[ATH1089]

My bass spot is down in Lacey; on maps it is called 'Lower Lake,' right below 'Lake Barnegat.' I have been going for the past couple of week's without a lot of success (1 or 2 tiny pickerel). Today I landed 2 small chain pickerel, 1 that had to be 2-3lbs., and my first two largemouth bass of the season, each about 1.25lbs. It is going to be a good year.

[kcritch]

Not a bad start....just a few more days of this "not freezing" weather in a row and I think things are really going to open up on the bass.

[bulletbob]

Very interesting.. I lived there for about 9 years, fished those lakes a lot.. Never caught or saw a LMB caught there.. All the pickeral were stunted.. They had large heads and very skinny bodies.. There were small grass pickerel there as well. There were small bullheads that also looked stunted.. Just no meat on them at all, and they were very dark, almost pitch black.. Never saw a decent size one... The bottom was all sand and I never saw much minnow life in any of those lakes.. water was a purplish brown -tannic stained.. The only fish I ever saw that grew to nice size there were pumpkinseed sunfish, but there weren't too many of them.. I wonder if things have changed, or if I was just a lousy fisherman.. Never saw much of anything of any size caught there from 1982 to 1991... I would be interested in learning if the state stocked those bass there, or if they were always there, and I just never caught one....bob

[ATH1089]

Very interesting.. I lived there for about 9 years, fished those lakes a lot.. Never caught or saw a LMB caught there.. All the pickeral were stunted.. They had large heads and very skinny bodies.. There were small grass pickerel there as well. There were small bullheads that also looked stunted.. Just no meat on them at all, and they were very dark, almost pitch black.. Never saw a decent size one... The bottom was all sand and I never saw much minnow life in any of those lakes.. water was a purplish brown -tannic stained.. The only fish I ever saw that grew to nice size there were pumpkinseed sunfish, but there weren't too many of them.. I wonder if things have changed, or if I was just a lousy fisherman.. Never saw much of anything of any size caught there from 1982 to 1991... I would be interested in learning if the state stocked those bass there, or if they were always there, and I just never caught one....bob

I have never seen any sunfish in any of the lakes, and the water looks like any other lake I have been to. All of the fish I have caught there have been healthy. I know there are catfish there, but I have only seen three; one my brother caught a couple of years ago, one was dead on the shoreline, and the other was yesterday. The third, smallest one looked like someone had used it as a chew toy and let it go. Maybe one of the ospreys caught it or something. I also saw two dead carp on the shore the other day. I do not know if they were the results of predation or fishermen being a-holes.