Hunting & Fishing

Big game

The woods of northeastern Washington will reverberate with the crack of rifles this weekend as thousands of hunters try to fill their tags before the ending of the late buck season.

Many hunters should tag big bucks. The rut is peaking and the bucks, more interested in sex than safety, are hunting does. This is the time of year when the biggest and oldest bucks are tagged.

Only archers and muzzleloaders will hunt deer in Eastern Washington after this weekend. The late buck season ends Sunday evening.

The woods of game management units 105 through 124 were alive with hunters last weekend and many were out this week. Only whitetail bucks are legal targets during the late buck season.

Most late archery and muzzleloader seasons for deer and elk in Washington will get underway Nov. 22, the day before Thanksgiving. A few special hunts for modern rifle hunters are scheduled.

North Idaho deer hunters will have the rest of this month to hunt.

Steelhead

Can you imagine catching a steelhead an hour? Or even one every 2 hours? It’s possible.

For anglers who know the Touchet and the Tucannon, steelhead fishing was terrific last weekend, so good that most went home with limits. Fishery biologist Art Viola reported anglers averaged 1.3 steelhead an hour along the Touchet and 2.3 per hour along the Tucannon.

Because only four anglers were checked on the Touchet, figures for that stream may not reflect accurately what happened. However, 27 were checked along the Tucannon and the catch rate was a better indication of the kind of fishing.

Only a couple of anglers were checked along the Walla Walla River, but they averaged 4 hours per steelhead.

Good numbers of anglers were checked near the dams. Averages follow: Ice Harbor, 19.1 hours per fish; Lower Monumental, 9; Little Goose, 12.1; Lower Granite, 34.1, Snake at Tucannon’s mouth, 32; and mid-Snake, shore anglers, 20.7.

The Idaho Fish and Game Department reported 196 anglers averaged 25 hours per steelhead along the Snake above Lewiston last weekend. Average for the Clearwater, where all steelhead must be released, was 34 hours per fish.

Fishing was better along the Salmon, ranging from 9 to 11 hours per steelhead on some stretches of the lower river.

Lake Pend Oreille

Anglers will start trolling Saturday for big fish and a share of $5,000 in Kamloops & Kokanee cash offered by the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club to winners of the Thanksgiving Challenge Derby.

Fishermen are expected to boat some 20-pound-plus rainbows, as well as a few big mackinaw trout, during the nine-day derby.

Trollers have hooked big rainbows near the surface the last couple of weeks. Many have been trolling flies and lures off planing boards. This is the time of year when rainbows are near the surface.

The sponsor will pay $1,000 to the angler who enters the largest rainbow, $500 for the next largest, and $250 for the third. Only rainbows 34 inches or longer can be entered.

Youngsters 9 and older are eligible for cash prizes as follows: First, $300; second, $200; and third, $100.

Prizes for the mackinaw division: First, $450; second, $250; third, $150; and fourth through 10th, $100.

Even those who catch squawfish will win K&K cash, with the first-place winner taking $300, second $200, and third $100.

Entry fee is $15 for adults, nothing for youngsters. More than 30 stores and marinas throughout the Inland Northwest sell derby tickets.

Waterfowl

The region’s duck hunters are happy again. Tens of thousands of ducks, mostly mallards, have flown into the Inland Northwest from Canadian provinces and are providing excellent hunting for the first time since opening weekend.

If waterfowl biologists are right, there will be more ducks in Eastern Washington and North Idaho the next few weeks than there have been in several years. The biologists have been predicting near-record flights out of Canada.

Hunters soon will know whether the biologists are right. They’ve been seeing big flocks of mallards from the Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge in North Idaho to the Potholes Reservoir in the Columbia Basin. Big flocks have also been seen along Lake Roosevelt and at Sprague Lake.

Although the build-up of duck numbers has been impressive at the Kootenai refuge, hunting hasn’t been as good as hunters expected it to be. Hunters averaged only about one duck each last weekend.

Jim Reynolds, assistant refuge manager, said 20,000 ducks and 500 geese were using refuge waters last week.

Upland birds

Scatter-gunners are continuing to work heavy cover with their dogs in parts of Eastern Washington. They say they’ve seen fairly good numbers of pheasants in southern Whitman County, in the Central Ferry area and along the lower Crab Creek channel in the Columbia Basin.

Quail hunters have found good-sized coveys along the Palouse River, brushy draws along the Snake and in the Yakima area.

Trout, Washington

Lake Roosevelt may be the most productive lake in Eastern Washington for rainbows. However, fishing can be good one day and slow the next.

Guide John Carruth of Davenport said most of the rainbows anglers are catching are 13 to 16 inches long, but some are up to 21 inches. Anglers have been trolling for the rainbows near the surface from Keller Ferry to Hunters.

Carruth said walleye fishing has been slow.

Anglers still have a few more days to fish Lenore Lake for the big Lahontan cutthroat. The lake closes at the end of November.

Salmon

Trollers are continuing to catch good numbers of chinook salmon at Lake Coeur d’Alene. Ross Fister of Fins & Feathers at Coeur d’Alene said most of the salmon they’re catching are 7 to 10 pounds.

Most productive areas are Carlin Bay, from Arrow Point to Hudson Point and from Bennett Bay to the golf course. Biggest salmon are 55 to 90 feet deep.

Spiny-rayed species

Bass fishing is still good at the lakes adjacent to the lower Coeur d’Alene River, Fister said. He recommended anglers fish deep at Killarney, Anderson, Black and Blue lakes.

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