Hunting & Fishing
Unpublished correction: The name of Higgens Point is misspelled in this story. This information is from the Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation.
Upland birds
If you like to pursue pheasants, you only have five more days, including today, to hunt. Seasons end Dec. 31 in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.
Idaho’s seasons on quail, partridges and forest grouse also will end Wednesday. However, in Washington, the quail and partridge seasons run through Jan. 12, provided the Fish and Game Commission doesn’t close it to protect vulnerable birds during severe weather.
Bagging a limit of roosters this time of year is difficult. Unless there are several inches of fresh snow on the ground or temperatures are near zero, the birds will run or fly when hunters stop their cars.
Pheasants that have survived nearly three months of hunting know the people who invade their homes want to kill them and they’ve learned to fly as soon as hunters appear.
For example, when my son, John, and grandson, Jesse, and I hunted in southeastern Washington Sunday, we saw at least 150, but getting close enough to roosters for a shot proved extremely difficult. And we had two good yellow Labs.
The pheasant population in the Columbia Basin is considerably larger than those of the last few years, but there aren’t nearly the number of birds as there are in southeastern Washington.
Al Stier and I hunted hard for two days in the Mesa area last week and saw only seven pheasants, six of which were hens. We hiked through harvested corn fields and waded through thick cover. Most of the birds probably were in the still-unharvested corn fields.
But the situation was different Sunday in southern Whitman County and northern Columbia and Garfield counties. We saw scores of pheasants and Hungarian partridges on snow in Whitman and even more birds in the snowless areas of Columbia and Garfield counties.
The only way hunters will take limits during the final days of the season, we decided as we drove home, is for snowfall of several inches or near-zero temperatures. Pheasants won’t run through several inches of soft snow and they don’t like to move around much when the temperatures are near zero.
Lots of land in the Basin and in southeastern Washington is posted with “Hunting Only by Written Permission” signs. Locating owners of the land can be difficult, and, in some cases, farmers no longer permit hunting after mid-December.
This is the time of year to see Hungarian partridges. We saw several flocks in snow-covered fields, but getting close enough for a shot or two proved difficult.
Waterfowl
It’s impossible to predict from day to day where there will be enough ducks and geese for good hunting. For a while last week, there were thousands of ducks and geese in the northern Columbia Basin. By week’s end, a high percentage of the birds had vanished, probably south to the Umatilla area, or even farther south.
Stier and I saw thousands of ducks and geese flying to harvested corn fields and winter wheat fields south of Othello during the first part of our hunt last week. On the third day, when we decided to hunt waterfowl, we saw only a few hundred birds.
Nearly all small lakes and potholes in Eastern Washington are covered with ice and the bigger waters, such as the Potholes Reservoir and Moses Lake, are starting to freeze over.
Hunting was poor nearly everywhere in the Basin last weekend. Some hunters, who thought thousands of ducks would be on the Columbia in the Ringold Springs area, had poor shooting. Two Spokane men hunted from dawn to sunset and bagged only two ducks.
Rod Meseberg, owner of the Mar-Don Resort, said most ducks left the Potholes area last week. As a result, scheduled guided hunts and taxi service were canceled for the weekend.
“We need some warmer weather to melt some of the snow,” he said. “There’s still too much standing corn; consequently, the birds don’t have enough cut corn for eating.”
For the first time this year, there are big flocks of ducks on the Snake River in the Central Ferry area. Usually, that part of the river only provides shooting for geese in December.
Nearly all ducks and geese that were in Idaho’s Panhandle have moved west and south.
Idaho gunners can shoot ducks and geese through Jan. 5. Eastern Washington hunters can continue through Jan. 19.
Steelhead
The Snake River just below and above Heller’s Bar is one of the best spots in the Inland Northwest to catch steelhead.
Jay Poe, owner of Pope’s Hells Canyon Sports at Clarkston, said steelhead fishing near Heller’s Bar has been excellent. The steelhead are wintering in the area.
The Grande Ronde is freezing, Poe said, but some anglers who know the river are still hooking steelhead. Most are using bait.
The Snake, between Clarkston and the mouth of the Ronde, has provided fair steelhead fishing, Poe said.
Numerous anglers have been fishing shrimp under bobbers in the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater, he said. Fishing has been good at times.
The Clearwater below Potlatch Creek is clear, Poe said. The creek had been pouring muddy water into the river as the result of rainstorms. Fishing has been fair along the lower Clearwater.
Fishermen are continuing to catch some steelhead above and below Little Goose and Lower Monumental dams and off the mouth of the Tucannon River, as well as in the lower Tucannon.
Winter fishing
If you decide to fish through ice this weekend, make sure it is thick and hard enough to support you and your equipment.
Numerous anglers have been ice fishing the last week at such lakes as Fourth of July and Hog Canyon in the Spokane region and Hauser and the lakes adjacent to the lower Coeur d’Alene River in Idaho.
Ice on Fourth of July and Hog Canyon was 3 to 4 inches thick in many places last weekend, but thin in lots of spots.
Jim Scroggie, owner of the Fishtrap Lake Resort, said at mid-week he believes that Hog Canyon has the only safe ice of any lake in the vicinity. Even then, he said, the inlet and outlet areas are covered with ice too thin to trust. Most of the lake has plenty of ice for safe ice fishing, he said.
Ice on Fourth of July, Scroggie said, is treacherous. The lake level is rising as the result of runoff and the ice along the shoreline in the upper end of the lake is too thin to trust.
The lower end still wasn’t frozen solid at mid-week.
A few anglers have been fishing through ice at Sprague Lake, Scroggie said, but most are waiting for the ice to thicken.
This week’s snowstorms have put insulating blankets on lakes, stopping or slowing the freezing process.
Snow has blanketed ice at most lakes in Idaho’s Panhandle and in the Spokane region.
Ross Fister of the Fins & Feathers shop at Coeur d’Alene said Hauser and Upper Twin are the best places to catch perch. Anglers also have been catching a few rainbows at the lakes.
Salmon
Trollers are continuing to catch chinook salmon of more than 15 pounds, Fister said.
“Fishing has been surprisingly good,” he said.
The salmon still are suspended in 50 to 80 feet of water and most anglers are trolling either helmeted herring or mini-squids behind flashers.
Most popular and productive areas have been from Bennett Bay down to Higgins Point and between Carlin Bay and Powder Horn Bay.
Most of the chinooks boated the last 10 days have weighed 10 to 12 pounds. The major boat-launching areas are ice-free, Fister said.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN - Fishing & Hunting Report