How this site works

What it answers

Which recently stocked lake can I realistically fish from shore, and what do I need to know before driving there? It combines four kinds of facts and keeps them separate: stocking events, physical access, fishing regulations and health advisories. It never declares a lake "open" or "closed".

Which lakes

v0.1 covers 20 hand-validated waters. Each lake's identity was checked against its official WDFW lake page, its stocking records are attached only through confirmed release-location names, and its access facts were reviewed on Oct 31, 2026 with a verbatim quote and link for every value.

"Recently stocked" means catchable size

• Source: WDFW Fish Plants dataset (data.wa.gov 6fex-3r7d), which holds completed, reported releases. The annual stocking plan (planned releases) is not used anywhere on this site.
• Counted: trout/kokanee with 3 or fewer fish per pound. This is the threshold WDFW's own lake pages use for "catchable" plants. Lifestage labels are not used because they are inconsistent in the source.
• Not counted: fry and fingerlings (more than 3 fish per pound), releases with no size reported, and other species. These are shown in stocking tables but never make a lake "recently stocked".
• Recent = released within 30 days before your trip date. This is a planning window, not a claim about how many fish remain. Stocking after WDFW's latest data publication cannot be known.

Shore access and unknowns

• Shore access is read from WDFW's shoreline notes, WDFW shore-fishing site points and manager pages. WDFW's shoreline rating is "Good" on almost every page, even where the note says access is limited, so the note decides.
• If an official source does not state something, the site says "Not stated by <manager>". Silence is never shown as "No" or "No fee". Where official sources conflict, the site says so.
• Where one lake has several managers (e.g. a WDFW ramp and a city park dock), each access point is shown separately, because passes and fees differ.

Notices and freshness

• WDFW emergency rules: checked for each lake through WDFW's per-lake emergency-rule listing (includes statewide rules).
• Toxic algae: WA Dept of Ecology's list of lakes above guidelines. A listing attaches to a lake only by Ecology site ID, or by a name held by exactly one official WDFW water; ambiguous names (e.g. "Green Lake", "Clear Lake") are never attached automatically.
• Park closures and construction: dated notices on manager pages, plus automatic change detection on every cited page. A changed page flags the lake as possibly out of date until re-reviewed.
• Every source shows when it was last checked successfully. If a refresh fails, the last known data stays up, labelled STALE with the failure time; a failed check never counts as a fresh one.

Identity safeguards

WDFW's geo_code is used as supporting evidence only. Known source errors are handled by explicit overrides: Long Lake (Thurston) stocking carries Long's Pond's code and is excluded from Long's Pond; the Warm Beach Lake Martha is kept apart from Martha Lake (Lynnwood); derby events and separate ponds that share a lake's code are not attached. Any new release location carrying one of these lakes' codes goes to a review queue instead of being attached.

Distances

Straight-line miles from a US Census place point (or your device location, which stays in your browser) to the lake centre in WDFW's lake data. They are not driving distances.

Area pages

An area page is published only if at least 3 validated lakes lie within 25 miles and its lakes overlap no more than 60% with an area page already published.

• Seattle: published (4 lakes)
• Tacoma: published (12 lakes)
• Puyallup: not published — 92% overlap with an already-published area page (thin duplicate) (11 lakes)
• Vancouver: published (3 lakes)
• Olympia: published (4 lakes)

Sources

• WDFW Fish Plants (data.wa.gov)
• WDFW lowland lake pages
• WDFW water access areas
• WDFW emergency fishing rules
• WDFW sport fishing rules pamphlet
• WA Dept of Ecology freshwater algae
• Washington State Parks
• County, city and utility park pages, linked on each lake page
• US Census Gazetteer (place points)