Alan Liere’s weekly fish and game report

Wed., Dec. 9, 2015

Alan Liere

Tip of the week

A Christmas gift of a Washington fishing and hunting license or a Discover Pass will last the whole year. They are now available for the 2016 season by phone at (866) 246-9453, online (https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov/), and from licensing dealers around the state. A Vehicle Access Pass to lands owned by WDFW is free with most types of annual fishing and hunting licenses. For details on purchasing a Discover Pass, see http://discoverpass.wa.gov/. In Idaho, go to any Idaho Fish and Game regional office and buy a gift certificate for a 2016 license. An adult may buy a license or tag for their minor child, but adult residents age 18 and over have to buy their own license because they need to show proof of residency. For this reason, gift certificates redeemable at Fish and Game regional offices are the way to go.

Braggin’ rights

The Gene Fink Memorial Chinook Derby on Lake Coeur d’Alene saw several fish over 10 pounds weighed in last weekend, but no monsters. First place was won by Wayne Hall of the Coeur d’Alene/Hayden area with a salmon of 15.4 pounds. His was caught on a herring, but a lot of other fish were taken on mini squids and flasher at 100 feet and deeper.

Overheard

– Lake Cascade in Idaho produced three perch in 2014 that topped a state record that had stood for 38 years, and also a world’s record for largest perch ever caught on a tip-up rig. But bigger perch are likely swimming in Lake Cascade right now based on fall surveys done by Idaho Fish and Game biologists, and ice fishing has gotten an early start thanks to a late-November cold spell. In October, Fish and Game crews netted 15 areas of the lake. About 27 percent of the perch caught were over 12 inches, and 8 percent were over 14 inches. The largest perch they netted taped a shade under 16 inches, and they’re getting bigger.

– The average survival of adult Snake River sockeye into Idaho is usually around 44 percent: this year survival was just 1 percent. The year wasn’t a total loss for the endangered sockeye, however. Idaho Fish and Game said it recently completed spawning sockeye salmon and expects that will produce a record number of smolts. With spawning of wild fish and “captive broodstock” complete, Fish and Game and NOAA fisheries crews processed and fertilized more than a million eggs, which should produce about 750,000 young fish that will be released in May of 2017.

Heads up

A registration in the 2016 Spokane Fly Fishers Fly Fishing School is a gift that will keep giving for a lifetime. It starts Feb. 18 and includes classroom time both indoors and outdoors. Indoor classes are held at the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council building on North Market and casting classes are held at a local park and on the water at a local lake. The non-member fee is $125 for 18 and over or $60 for ages 12-17. The non-member fee includes a club membership through May 2017. Info: Gale Allen at (509) 465-3272.

Fly Fishing

The North Fork Coeur d’Alene below Prichard is a good place to scratch your fly fishing itch, but the Spokane River is probably better and Rocky Ford better yet. Nymph rigs are a good bet, but scuds are still the favorite of Rocky Ford’s outsized rainbow.

Salmon and steelhead

Fishing for steelhead is good on the main stem Columbia River with good numbers of fish taken in the Bridgeport area. Wild fish are running about 60 percent.

With the recent rains, the Clearwater River steelhead should become active if the water doesn’t get too dirty. The big B-run fish are in the river now.

Trout and kokanee

The water level at Rock Lake is very low but if you can get a boat in, the trout will most likely cooperate. With planted steelhead providing easy picking all year, the larger trout have become somewhat finicky about what they eat, but it is almost impossible to keep the smaller 15- to 17-inch rainbow and the same-sized steelhead off your hook. An angler I spoke with this week at Rock said he has tremendous luck on browns, including some of the big ones by trolling huge plugs that resemble trout. These are long-lined at least 100 feet back. Some days, anglers catch mostly brown trout, and some days it is the rainbow that provide the action.

It doesn’t seem to matter if you launch at Keller, Ft. Spokane, Lincoln, Spring Canyon or Porcupine Bay, the fishing has been outstanding on Lake Roosevelt. Trout are everywhere but the best kokanee reports come from Sterling and Keller with fish running to 24 inches. Pink hootchies baited with white corn and trolled at about 1.7 mph behind a dodger have been most effective for the kokes, but a pink or orange Kekeda Fly is also effective.

The winter trout lakes often provide ice fishing by this time, but this year there is a lot of open water. Anglers were catching the 11- to 14-inch Hog Canyon fish from shore this week. There is no ice on Fourth of July. Anglers are walking down past the narrows to fish from shore for rainbow running to 24 inches. Catching has been excellent. Up north, Hatch Lake is mostly iced up, but it doesn’t look safe. Williams is mostly open and anglers could launch a small boat or fish from shore.

Eloika Lake has thin ice covered with water; don’t go there. Silver is without ice, as is Waitts. Sprague, which had up to 3 inches of ice last week, is now wide open. Brave (foolhardy?) anglers who fished through thin ice at Sprague last week did very well on very large rainbow. Anglers fishing from shore are having moderate success.

There is a little bit of ice on some of the small Idaho Panhandle lakes, but not enough for safe fishing. Round Lake, which probably had more than any lake, had 3 inches at the most – and that was diminishing rapidly. Priest and Pend Oreille are wide open and mackinaw fishing has been fair-to-good at both lakes. You can learn more about ice fishing, including techniques and tackle, as well as waters throughout Idaho that typically have ice fishing, on a webpage dedicated to the subject at https://fishandgame.idaho.gov/content/icefishing.

Spiny ray

Perch fishermen are finding random schools near the I-90 Bridge over Moses Lake but they are not the consistently large fish that congregate there in the spring. The lake is ice-free.

Blade baiting the shallow water humps is still taking walleye on Potholes Reservoir in 12-15 feet of water. The water temperature was 39 degrees early in the week. There is no ice at Banks Lake and the walleye fishing has slowed significantly.

Lake Coeur d’Alene is cooling off, but there is still a pike bite. The fish are coming out of 5 feet of water and hitting bright-colored glide baits.

Other species

WDFW continues to test for domoic acid in razor clams along Washington’s coastal beaches, where digging has been closed this fall. Domoic acid tends to remain in the fat cells of razor clams longer than other shellfish species. The department will make an announcement once toxin levels drop to safe levels and digging can begin.

Hunting

Moses Lake area duck hunting spots lost their ice this week and hunters reported seeing more teal and bluebill than mallards. The teal are usually the first to come and the first to leave, with the larger puddle ducks coming later, so it would seem the hunting will improve. There are definitely mallards being shot at numerous Columbia Basin locations and the goose hunting is already excellent. A friend from Moses Lake says he has seen more pheasants in the area this year than in the last 10.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com