Everything Is Coming Up Rosy At Amber

You’ll hook good-sized trout at Amber this spring, but only a few bragging-size fish.

But that will change in the near future. Approximately 5,000 sterilized rainbows will be released into the popular selective fishery lake next month, thanks to the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club.

The sterilized trout, all females, will not have to undergo the debilitating spawning cycle, and most of those not taken home by anglers will survive for several years. Fishermen may be catching rainbows weighing 8 to 10 pounds in a few years.

The club is paying Troutlodge Inc., of Moses Lake, $2,500 for the 5,000 sterilized fingerlings. Planting of the trout has the blessing of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department.

Also this spring, the department will plant several thousand fingerling rainbows and possibly a few cutthroat. Adipose fins of the sterilized rainbows will be clipped before they’re released.

The non-sterilized rainbows, like nearly all trout released into Washington’s lakes and streams, thrive for about two years and then, unable to overcome problems associated with their spawning cycles, start dying. Few non-sterilized rainbows survive after second attempt to spawn.

Mike Albert, manager of the Spokane fish hatchery, said trout can’t reabsorb their eggs after the second spawning cycle. Their kidneys try to reabsorb the eggs and then malfunction and the fish die.

But sterilized fish continue to grow and thrive for several years after their non-sterilized cousins die.

Amber, once a put-and-take lake that attracted several thousand anglers on opening days and for a couple of weeks thereafter, was designated a selective fishery lake a few years ago. The limit is two trout a day; minimum size is 14 inches. Bait is banned. Only unscented artificial flies or lures with a barbless single hook are allowed.

It took a while for the lake to become popular again. In fact, because limited numbers of anglers fished the lake the first couple of seasons after restrictive regulations were put in place, Fish and Wildlife Department officials hinted that perhaps the lake’s status as a selective fishery water should be changed.

Gradually, however, as the percentage of carryover trout increased and anglers more interested in fun than meat began fishing the lake, the lake’s popularity began to increase. After the first week or so of the last couple of seasons, Amber has been one of the most popular trout lakes in the Spokane region. Anglers learned they could catch good numbers of 14- to 16-inch trout at the lake through each summer.

Amber isn’t the only Eastern Washington lake that will be planted with sterilized rainbows. Columbia Basin fisheries Jeff Korth said that Quail, a fly fishing-only lake on the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, will be planted with 12-inch-long sterilized rainbows after it’s rehabilitated this spring. The trout will come from Troutlodge Inc.

The Inland Empire club was the first organization to become interested in sterilizing trout. From 1978 through 1980 members, with the cooperation of the Fish and Wildlife Department, spent a lot of time surgically sterilizing rainbows. However, the gonads regenerated in most cases.

Then the club cooperated with Dr. Gary Thorgaard, a Washington State University geneticist, in the development of a method to sterilize fish by using heat during the egg stage.

Ed McLeary, operator of Troutlodge, became interested in sterilizing trout and eventually developed an economically feasible method to sterile large numbers of fish. He now sells sterilized trout to people who have private ponds. Some fish in those ponds are now 10-pounders.

Interest in sterilized trout has spread to Canada. Brian Chan of Kamloops, B.C., said that the province now releases only sterilized brook trout in lakes. Unlike rainbows and cutthroat, brookies can spawn in a lake; as a result, lakes that are planted with non-sterilized brook trout become over-populated with the trout. Result: stunted fish.

Like many sportsmen’s organizations, including bass and walleye clubs and the Inland Northwest Wildlife Council, the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club is involved in numerous projects to improve fishing. The club is spending several thousand dollars to plant trout in the Spokane River. The club and the Spokane Fly Fishers are cooperating in the project.

Other fly clubs throughout the state are cooperating with the Fish and Wildlife Department to enhance fishing at many lakes and streams, including Lenice and Nunnally, which were opened for the season last Saturday and Rocky Ford Creek north of Moses Lake. , DataTimes MEMO: You can contact Fenton Roskelley by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 3814.

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