Submitted PhotoMike Giles is pictured here during a recent trip with Terry Bates.

Terry Bates studied the row of cypress trees intently as he worked the cypress knees and shallow water brush in search of a hungry bass. He was dissecting the cover like a skilled surgeon, pitching the crawfish imitation into each piece of cover with barely a ripple.

“Wham!” Bates drove the steel hook home a split second after a bass sucked in the tempting offering. Bates was loaded for bear, so he wasted no time in jerking the bass from the safety of the gnarled cypress knees and structure under the water. After a quick picture, he released the bass to catch another day.

Lake Washington warms up quicker than many lakes, and the crappie and bass can be found in shallow water earlier than almost any other public body of water in the state. Even more importantly, for bass anglers who like to fish shallow, bass can be caught year-round in the shady shallow waters of the lake.

Bates is a retired fisheries biologist who has spent a lifetime fishing Lake Washington and the fertile Delta oxbows, sloughs and rivers. He’s also been a successful tournament angler since the ’70s, and he’s still locating bass and winning tournaments to this day.

If you want to catch bass on Lake Washington or one of the Delta lakes, Bates can show you when, where and how. As a bass guide, he’s as good as any with whom I’ve ever fished. He’ll even supply the rod and reels and show you how to fish a lure or technique that the fish are biting that time of year.

I joined Bates on the lake recently and had a great day on the water. The water temperature was rising in between the cold fronts, but the fish had already moved up into the shallow waters, and they were biting, though not aggressively.

Since the bass were lethargic, Bates with pitching the small creature baits and getting bit regularly. I switched to a Bass Pro Stiko and promptly caught a bass after not getting bit for a while. Bates kept working the Texas-rigged crawfish, and I worked the soft jerkbaits, and we both got bites.

About mid-morning, Bates found an area that had bass moving up, and they were biting. He’d pitch that bait to trees and wood cover and get bit regularly, but you never knew just which cast would entice a bait.

Watching the master bass angler at work was amazing as he effortlessly pitched and retrieved the lure without a hitch. And occasionally, he slammed the door on the bass, set the hook and jerked them from their hidden lair. Occasionally, we’d take a picture, but he releases every bass he catches to grow some more and catch another day.

“I like to fish spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and Texas-rigged plastics on Lake Washington,” Bates said. “I’ll let them tell me what they want, and after we determine what that is, we’ll offer that to them as long as they keep biting.”

As the water warms up, he’ll continue probing the shallow waters with spinnerbaits and other favorite lures and give them what they want. The good news is that you don’t have to be an expert bass angler to catch bass at Lake Washington. Just get to the lake and keep your lure in the water, and you’ll probably catch a few 3- to 5-pounders — or at least have the opportunity.

If you want to know more about current fishing conditions at the lake, contact Mike Jones, owner of Bait N’ Thang’s bait shop and boat launch on the lake, at 662-822-2087, or contact Terry Bates for bass fishing information at 662-390-3886.

Call Mike Giles at 601-917-3898 or email mikegiles18@comcast.net.