Largemouth Bass
The east-end cattail marsh is where largemouth live on Pittock. Fifty hectares of flooded cattail — the only large vegetated shallow on a reservoir that's otherwise open, soft-bottomed water. It's the warm, weedy, stained cover largemouth thrive in and smallmouth avoid, backed up by the 2016 shoreline plantings and wood cover and the shallow riverine arm above the campground. Skinny water, thick cover, warm and green.
← Back to Pittock Lake conditionsHow it fishes
Largemouth want warm, shallow, weedy water, and Pittock keeps it all at the upstream end. The cattail marsh, the 2016 shoreline plantings and wood cover, and the shallow arm above the campground form a continuous band of skinny vegetated cover where bass ambush sunfish, shiners, and young panfish.
This end warms first in spring and stays productive through the warm months while the main basin runs open and less fishy for them. The eutrophic, stained water suits them — they tolerate the summer green and heat better than smallmouth.
The catch is the drawdown: the reservoir drops from mid-June through fall, and the skinny water goes first, so the marsh and arm that hold fish in early summer can be mud by autumn. Fish the cover early and follow the receding weed edge as levels fall.
Structure
The reservoir's only large vegetated shallow — classic warm-water largemouth cover, and the water that warms first in spring.
Engineered shallow cover and native shoreline plantings from the UTRCA habitat project — added ambush cover in the shallows.
The riverine upper end — shallow, quiet water by boating rule, fishing much like the marsh.
Regulations
This is a summary, not the legal regulation — confirm current rules with the official source before fishing.