Mailbag

An alert angler/reader spotted an omission in our recent lake fishing preview. Nice catch.

In the April 25 edition of The Enterprise I was surprised that Echo Lake in Shoreline had been omitted in the article (“Lakes stocked for opening day”) whereas Bitter Lake, in Seattle had been included.

To my knowledge, though it’s only a 13-acre lake, Echo Lake is the only spring-fed, swimming and trout fishing lake in Shoreline and feeds into Lake Ballinger.

When I queried some fishermen and women over the weekend at Echo Lake Park at N. 200th St. and Ashworth Ave. N., trout were being caught.

One woman displayed her rainbow trout saying she’d limited Sunday and on a previous day had caught one of 171/2 inches.

I was reminded by one fisherman that children have enjoyed Derby Day in the past, where an area of the lake is netted off and planted. After the fun, the netting is removed and the uncaught fish are freed into Echo Lake.

Some years the lake’s been planted by the University of Washington and some years it’s been stocked by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

This year, the Department of Fish and Wildlife stocked 1,200 rainbow trout of eight to 12 inches in Echo Lake in March.

With its small size, Echo Lake welcomes canoes, rowboats, floats, and dinghies, but limits motorboats to a maximum of 1 horsepower electric motors.

Fishing is also done along the park’s shoreline, which has a few picnic tables, benches, and a bathroom available; the lake is open year round.

BARBARA LACY

Shoreline