Lake Washington fishing

I am on the east side overnight from time to time.  The boat launches at Newport Shores and Coulon Park would be very convenient.  Does anyone have any suggestions for fishing locations accessible from either of these launches and the species to  target?  I don't do much freshwater fishing, and have not explored Lake Washington at all. 

I took a few trips out of Coulon park last year.  Its not too long of a trip to the south tip of mercer island and I had good success trolling for cutthroat.  I have also done some good bass fishing around the docks north of the park and the perch fishing can be pretty good off the edges of the weed beds. I have never fished it this early though, most of my trips were in april and may.

MW

Well I wish I could offer some advice about lake washington. I have fished it quite a bit, especially last week because the weather was pretty nice. I have trolled all depths with a multitude of lures. Dicknites, rapalas, wedding rings, roostertails and a few other things. No Luck. I usually launch at coulon park and fish the mouth area of the cedar river or head north to the southern tip of mercer island.  mark a fair amount of fish but haven't landed anything worth while. Usually I'm marking fish between 30 and 65 feet when I'm in about 70-85 feet of water.

... you can catch suckers till your blue in the face with a worm along the bottom

Demonick how'd you do? I'm curious if you got bit.

Demonick how'd you do? I'm curious if you got bit.

Never went out.  I'm only in that area occasionally, and not every visit is amenable to fishing.  Looking at my schedule and the weather, it could be a few weeks. 

There is a submerged forest about 15-25' down  along the SE side of the south tip of Mercer Island.  Heard it produces bass. 

From what MW and FH said it sounds like trolling in the area between the south tip of Mercer Island, Coleman Pt., and the Cedar River are good for trout. 

LW is basically underfished, those in the know get a lot of trout and bass, both sm and lm.

LW is basically underfished, those in the know get a lot of trout and bass, both sm and lm.

+1.

And a lot of yellow perch, crappie, and salmon (in season).

-Allen

Where do you find the crappie? Are they in any shallow bay in the lake as the water warms?

Any advice for fishing for any of the species out from the Kirkland area?

The Lake Washington Chapter of PSA's April meeting (at 6:45 on Apr. 12) will feature a seminar on fishing Lake Washington, and the June 14 meeting will focus specifically on catching trout on Lake Washington and Sammamish.  The programing is generally for powerboaters.  That said, given how accessible Lake Washington is, I've found a lot of the information I got from similar seminars useful.  One of the guys that I expect will be talking in June primarily fishes from a canoe, so there can be some good info that's more applicable to small watercraft.

More detailed info about the meetings (which are open to the public) is on the chapter's web page.