I'm going to fish Lake WA more often in 2009.  The only hotspots i've fished are the various large bridges and the UW bay area.

What are your favorite hotspots?  What lures and techniques work best there?

ALSO (IMPORTANT):  Where do the bass spawn in Lake WA?  Multiple locations will be more helpful.

Some of the better known areas to fish are Coleman Point, Pleasure Point, Groat Point, and Webster Point. These are known as some of the "community" holes. There are a ton of docks to hit too, but you will need to spend some time finding the productive ones. As far as spawning areas go, I would recommend looking towards the back of any of the bays on the lake and inside weedlines around the docks. Just remember that the smallmouth will spawn in a bit deeper water than the largemouth. As far as baits to throw, you can't go wrong with throwing a drop shot rig with a small finesse bait, football jigs with twin tail grubs, and crankbaits.  I hope this helps.

Know the forage base and you'll catch bass. 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:

Just to be clear, the smelt are longfin smelt. They aren't salmon. Smelt spawn in the Cedar and Sammamish Rivers from February-March and begin to look very tasty to bass around this time of year. Larval smelt hatch in the spring and swim around the lake as small, clear larval fish through the summer. Now they are bigger, more colorful, and easier for bass to see. You'll also see perch start to nail them now, too. 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.

 

Now, salmon smolts (with an 'O') are the juvenile salmon that are migrating out of the lake to the ocean. Although salmon smolts will migrate out of the lake almost any time of year, the biggest migrations take place between May-July. There are a ton of fish that leave the Issaquah Creek Hatchery in April/May, and you will see a lot of those throughout the lake in addition to the large amount of naturally-produced (and some hatchery sockeye) fish leaving the Cedar River. So, you probably won't see many juvenile salmon leaving the lake right now.

do the bass spawn in the back of the UW bay area?

I personally wouldn't think so because the bay is full of lily pads and weeds, causing the bed to be all mucky and too soft for spawning????

idk

You are correct.

I just stumbled across this thread.  I wanted to say to Glen, excellent write up.  Not too many people or forums would give this detail of course with the exclusion of BassResource...

Great Job Glen