Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for June 27, 2024

Thu., June 27, 2024

By Alan Liere The Spokesman-Review

Tip of the week

Smallmouth bass anglers have been using plastic tube baits for years, but Wicked Lures spinners will often out-fish plastics and crankbaits. To learn how to rig Wicked Lures spinners for bass fishing and other species, go to their web site at www.wickedlures.com.

Heads up: The 2024 Brewster King Salmon Derby tickets are now on sale until July 30 at midnight. Get yours now before they sell out. Only 330 tickets will be sold. For information contact the Derby Headquarters at (509) -449-0605.

Overheard: All overnight camping at the Vernita Water Access Area on the Columbia River will be phased out in 2026. The level of use there has become unsustainable and is damaging the natural landscape. For this year, camping and day use users will have designated areas. Camping will be limited to 14 days per user only when fall salmon seasons are underway, and when the season is closed, camping is prohibited and vehicle access limited to a smaller day use area.

Unlike salmon which are one-and-done, some shad make the journey to their spawning grounds five to six times over the course of their lifetime. Approximately 95% of them return to the rivers where they were hatched, with only 5% straying to unfamiliar waters to spawn.

The kokanee bite on Loon Lake is nonexistent. Oddly, anglers are not even catching any small fish, even though just shy of a half million fry have been planted in the last five years including 115,000 this spring.

Braggin rights: Michael Ghosn recently caught a 19-pound channel catfish while fishing for bass in the sand dunes on Potholes Reservoir.

Fly fishing

The Spokane River has been fishing well lately, say the guides at Silver Bow Fly Shop. Floating and wading are both productive. Dry-dropper rigs have been the most consistent. Caddis nymphs under a large chubby-type dry fly have been hard to beat. Trout are eating caddis on the surface, especially in the evening.

The North Fork Coeur d’Alene has seen excellent dry fly action. Pale morning duns, yellow sallies and blue-winged olives are good throughout the day. The St. Joe River is fishing well too. Stones or chubbies with droppers like jig pheasant tails, perdigons, Spanish bullets or caddis pupa will find fish.

Rainbow, brown and cutthroat fishing has been good during daylight hours on the Yakima River’s upper canyon.

Trout and kokanee

Two friends fishing for mackinaw this week at Priest Lake said they caught a lot of fish from 1½ to 4 pounds around the islands at Priest Lake. They were Drop-shotting with Glo-Grubs in 90 to 150 feet of water.

Although Lake Roosevelt walleye fishing was slow this week, trollers are catching some nice rainbow. The Keller area has been mentioned as being particularly good.

Trollers are finding a good kokanee bite in several places on Lake Chelan, beginning just outside Mill Bay and down to the Blue Roofs. These fish are larger than usual, some stretching to 14 inches.

Coeur d’Alene Lake kokanee are pretty much everywhere. At Fins and Feathers in Coeur d’Alene, Jordan says “there are tons and tons of fish, but the size is only 9 to 10 inches.”

Salmon and steelhead

The forecast for summer chinook salmon to the Columbia River this year is 53,000, just slightly down from last year. The forecast for sockeye to the Columbia for this season is over 400,000, and it looks like it will exceed that. Sockeye passage over Bonneville Dam may have peaked with over 33,000 sockeye going over the dam on June 21st. That’s three times more than last year at the same time.

Spiny ray

Friends reported fast fishing this week for good-sized walleye on Long Lake. They said that in four hours of afternoon fishing they caught 25 ’eyes, keeping 10 between 17 and 24 inches and releasing many bigger than that. They were trolling bottom bouncers and spinners tipped with nightcrawlers, which also accounted for a lot of big perch.

Walleye fishing in Banks Lake has been good in 15-25 feet of water along weed beds and over flats. Trolled bottom walkers with a worm harness and nightcrawler has proven to be very effective. Large bays north of Steamboat Rock and the flats around Steamboat Rock are holding a lot of fish.

Smallmouth bass fishing has been excellent in the Bonneville Pool. Smallmouth fishing is also hot on the Pend Oreille, upper Snake and Grande Ronde rivers as well as numerous lakes and reservoirs like Banks, Potholes, Moses and Long. On Lake Coeur d’Alene, anglers are experiencing one of the best smallmouth bites in years with larger than average fish.

Largemouth bass fishing is hot now on Hayden Lake for anglers throwing spinnerbaits. Pike fishing has been fair. Spoons, spinnerbaits and glide baits are taking pike from Coeur d’Alene and Hayden lakes, but the bite will be better when weed beds become more obvious.

Potholes Reservoir crappie fishing is reported to be excellent right now. Anglers are catching them back in the dunes, but a lot are being taken from the MarDon Resort dock and along the shorelines. Some anglers say they are even catching them on small Roostertails, but small plastics, particularly the Bobby Garland Baby Shad in a color called “monkey milk” are most popular. You’ll catch a lot of small crappie, but there are also a lot of 11-to-14-inch fish coming in, and some even larger.

Other species

Anglers trolling with bottom walkers and nightcrawlers are catching channel catfish on the Palouse River flats near Lyons Ferry and in the Palouse River itself. The fish are running anywhere from 3 pounds all the way into the low teens. Cut bait under a bobber is also doing well in 4-6 feet of water.

As of Tuesday, 2,439,286 shad had passed Bonneville Dam with 65,001 coming over that day – a drop of about 14,000 fish over the previous day. Although the run is slowing down, there are still plenty of fish in the Columbia for good fishing.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com.