Sounds like a fun day on the water, nice job. Thanks for the report.

Sounds like a Great day. Where do you launch from and what do you use? I live close to Bonney Lake but really dont want to use their launch ($$$).

I am fairly new to fishing Tapps, but I met a wonderful gentleman on this site who I met up with at Tapps and he was kind enough to show me the ropes of fishing there. I personally only know of two ramps. At the Pierce County Park launch the regular launching fee is $15.00, but for us old fogies its $5.00. I can live with that. The other ramp is outragious. $9.00 to launch a boat, and, (I couldn not believe this when I first heard it,) $9.00 to take your boat back out. Crazy!!. And after Sept. 30th that will be the only ramp available, inthat the Pierce County Park closes then. There's too many other lakes to fish to get ripped off like that. If there's anyone out there that knows of another location to launch on Tapps, it would be appreciated. As far as what I've been using, yesterday I used a pegged 1/4 oz. slip sinker, with a nosed hooked tube about 18 inches behind that. Then just slowly dragged it along the bottom in 18 to 25 feet of water where there were sharp breaks in the bottom contour. My new found friend showed me the dragging technich. But there are a variety of plastics that can be used, and crankbaits that dive to atleast 10 ft. having been successful also. Right now by far the majority of the smallies are deep. Like yesterday, if you find a location that the smallies are schooled up on, the action can be fast and furious. I had 21 smallies by 10:00 AM, but the wind and pleasure crafts chased me off of it. So I had to go elsewhere to get the rest. The wind remained a problem for the remainder of the day. I've found casting to docks and shoreline right now is a waste of time. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the info! Tight lines.