I am no expert on Silver Lake. This article contains information I gathered from WDFW employees, long-time residents of the Silver Lake and Cowlitz County area, and fisher folk that have fished there for 40+ years. Thanks especially to Willie Nelson and Don Berry.
Silver Lake bass fishing is not what it used to be. In a nutshell, Silver Lake suffers from water quality problems; blue-green algae, excessive phosphorous, failing septic systems, possible stormwater pollution, an adjacent landfill on the South, very little submerged vegetation, and turbidity. No simple answer to the water quality problem overall, so this article is about one problem; the lack of former native submerged vegetation. Continue reading