Beta

GuidedFloats is in beta. The full site launches March 1, 2027. The mobile app follows.

Guides: claim before March 1, 2027 and your first full season of Premium is free. Claim your founding spot →

Log in List your guide serviceFor guides
Home › Waters › Washington › Moses Lake
Lake · Grant County in the Columbia Basin of central Washington · Washington

Moses Lake Fishing Guides

A sprawling, shallow desert lake in the Columbia Basin with three long arms, a strong walleye population and some of the best warmwater fishing in Washington.

Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Moses Lake

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

No guides listed yet

Guide or outfit this water? Create your profile. Listing is free, the commission is 10% or 7% with a premium profile, and premium profiles list first on this water.

About the Moses Lake

Moses Lake is the largest natural body of fresh water in Grant County and the centerpiece of the Columbia Basin’s warmwater fishing. It covers roughly sixty-eight hundred acres across three long, irregular arms, and it is shallow, averaging under twenty feet, with extensive weed growth, sand and mud bottom and a great deal of shoreline structure. Irrigation water from the Columbia Basin Project has kept its level far more stable than it was historically, which is a large part of why the fishery is as productive as it is.

Walleye are the main guided target and the population is genuinely strong, supported by an enormous forage base of perch and other panfish. The fishery works differently from the deep reservoir walleye fishing elsewhere in the West: fish here relate to weed edges, sand flats and the channel breaks between the arms rather than to deep rock. Trolling spinner rigs and bottom bouncers over the flats is the standard approach, and fish are often shallower than visitors expect.

The rest of the card is deep. Smallmouth bass hold on the rip-rap and rock along the causeways and the harder shorelines. Largemouth are abundant in the weed beds and among the docks of the town shoreline. Black crappie run to good sizes and are heavily fished in spring, yellow perch are everywhere, and channel catfish provide a warm-night fishery that almost nobody pursues. The setting is dry, open shrub-steppe country, so wind is the daily variable and the three-arm shape means a guide can nearly always find a lee somewhere on the lake. Water quality has been an ongoing management concern, with summer algae blooms in the shallower arms in some years, and guides plan around it by working the deeper channel water and the northern arm when the southern horns discolor.

Pool right now

1,046.67ft NGVD29
  • 24 hours0.00 ft → steady
  • For the dateLow for the date

Reading taken 2h ago at USGS 12471000, MOSES LAKE AT MOSES LAKE, WA. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Moses Lake.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Access

Cascade Park - the main public launch and campground on the west side, with parking and shore fishing.
Connelly Park - a south end ramp on Pelican Horn, protected in most winds.
Blue Heron Park - north end access, closest to the Rocky Ford and upper arm water.
The I-90 causeway and rip-rap - rock structure holding smallmouth bass through the summer.
Pelican Horn and Parker Horn - the two southern arms, weedy and productive for largemouth and crappie.
Potholes Reservoir, twenty minutes south - the standard alternative when wind shuts the lake down.
Moses Lake, the town - lodging, tackle, licenses and the base for local guides.

Seasons

Spring: crappie and perch move shallow and the walleye fishery turns on as the water warms through April and May.
Summer: walleye trolling over the flats and weed edges, with smallmouth on the rip-rap and largemouth in the docks.
Fall: the best big-walleye window of the year, with cooling water and much less recreational boat traffic.
Winter: ice fishing for perch and crappie in most years, though the ice is inconsistent and safety varies by arm.

From the water

No logged trips yet. Be the first to put this water on your map.

Log this water

Fished it or cleaned it? Log in or create a free account to log a trip with photos and earn the waterway badge.

Questions

What species can you catch on the Moses Lake?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye, Yellow Perch on the Moses Lake in Washington.

Where can you access the Moses Lake?

Cascade Park - the main public launch and campground on the west side, with parking and shore fishing. Connelly Park - a south end ramp on Pelican Horn, protected in most winds. Blue Heron Park - north end access, closest to the Rocky Ford and upper arm water. The I-90 causeway and rip-rap - rock structure holding smallmouth bass through the summer. Pelican Horn and Parker Horn - the two southern arms, weedy and productive for largemouth and crappie. Potholes Reservoir, twenty minutes south - the standard alternative when wind shuts the lake down. Moses Lake, the town - lodging, tackle, licens...

When is the best time to fish the Moses Lake?

Spring: crappie and perch move shallow and the walleye fishery turns on as the water warms through April and May. Summer: walleye trolling over the flats and weed edges, with smallmouth on the rip-rap and largemouth in the docks. Fall: the best big-walleye window of the year, with cooling water and much less recreational boat traffic. Winter: ice fishing for perch and crappie in most years, though the ice is inconsistent and safety varies by arm.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Moses Lake?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Washington agency site: https://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations