Time For State To Rehabilitate Rehab Programs

If you needed a reminder that the Columbia Basin no longer is a trout fisherman’s mecca, you got one last week. Hundreds of anglers averaged little more than one fish each when more than 40 lakes and streams were opened for the season.

The opener was a bust at all lakes on the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, at Warden and South Warden lakes and at most lakes on the Quincy Wildlife Recreation Area. Lenore Lake was one that provided fair-to-good fishing. One fly fisher hooked and released seven Lahontan cutthroat ranging from 17 to 24 inches in a short time.

If it weren’t for the selective fishery lakes and a few other lakes, most trout fishermen would ignore the Basin this spring and summer and fish in the Spokane region, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia.

Optimistic anglers have been hoping Fish and Wildlife Department brass in Olympia would realize that most people want to fish for trout, not spinyrayed species, and that a few thousand bags of rotenone would turn scores of lakes into fishing heavens. Practical fishermen are pessimistic.

Not long ago, anglers jammed the lakes on the national refuge and the Warden lakes on March 1 every year, with plenty of good-sized trout.And lakes near the Potholes Reservoir and west and south of the Warden lakes produced the kind of trout fishing anglers dream about.

Fishing gradually started deteriorating a few years ago. No one knows for sure, but fisheries biologists suspect cormorants have been doing to the rainbow fry what seals have been doing to the steelhead at Ballard Locks in Seattle.

Cormorants may not deserve all the blame. Biologists are still trying to determine what happens from the time they release fry to the day the lakes are reopened to fishing. Spinyrayed fish are a big problem at many lakes. Once upon a time, when a lake became contaminated with unwanted species, biologists and wildlife agents showed up with their bags of rotenone, killed all the fish and, when the lake no longer was toxic, released thousands of fry.

Unfortunately, rehabilitation program seems to be on the back burner as far as Olympia brass are concerned. Only a few lakes are rehabbed each year.

The backlog of lakes that should be rehabilitated keeps increasing each year, and the fishing continues to deteriorate. Incidentally, numerous lakes in the Spokane region should be rehabbed, but they’re not scheduled for the rotenone treatment.

Anglers now know there will be little trout fishing on the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge this year.

Last spring, the Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the refuge, indicated to the state that it wanted the lakes closed to fishing. Fishermen, the FWS argued, harassed nesting waterfowl.

Not knowing what would happen, the state decided not to plant the lakes on the refuge with fry. The lakes that would have been planted included Pillar, Cattail, Snipe, Shoveler, Gadwall, Poacher and Lemna.

Later, however, the FWS agreed to keep the lakes open to fishing. By that time, the lakes were too warm for fry to survive the shock of water in the 70s and 80s.

The only trout in the Pillar-Widgeon group are a few carryover fish.

The state rehabbed the Hamptons, Sago, Hourglass, Widgeon, Dollar and Marie last fall. They will be planted with fry this spring.

Apparently, only a small percentage of fry released into the Warden lakes survived. Three out of four trout checked were carryover fish.

The jury is still out on Quail, a small, fly fishing-only, catch-and release lake in the southeast corner of the refuge. Quail was planted with rainbow fry last spring. The quality of this year’s fishing is dependent on the survival of those fish.

Only a few lakes will be opened in April. They include Lenice, Mary, Nunnally and Dry Falls, all selective fishery waters, as well as Blue, Park and several small lakes on the Sun Lakes State Park.

So not all is bad. Trout fishing in the Basin may never again be as good as it was, but it could be good enough to win back some of the reputation it lost as one of the Northwest’s best trout fishing areas.

All that is needed is a commitment by the state to spend the money to rejuvenate the rehabilitation program that was the envy of fisheries officials throughout the country.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Fenton Roskelley The Spokesman-Review