Hunting+Fishing

Fri., Oct. 6, 2006

Alan Liere Correspondent

Braggin' rights

Mark Abel of Sun Valley, Idaho, set an Idaho walleye record last Sunday night at Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir with a fish weighing 17.6 pounds. His fish broke the 10-year-old state record of 16.2 pounds

Overheard

Last Saturday, Tag Watson won the Lake Whatcom Bass Tournament, taking a possible IFGA state record largemouth in the process. Reportedly, he couldn't register it as a WDFW state record because it is illegal to transport live gamefish and he didn't want to kill the fish to bring it to a certified scale. The long-standing record came from Banks Lake in 1977 and weighed 11.57 pounds.

Heads up

“ A two-hour training session hosted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will be held tonight in Spokane for citizens who want to help prevent poaching of the state's fishing and wildlife resources. The class is from 7-9 at the WDFW Region 1 Office, 2315 Discovery Place, Spokane Valley. Info: John McColgin, 892-1001 ext. 354.

“WDFW district wildlife biologist Pat Fowler said deer hunters who normally hunt game management 162 and 166 should plan to go elsewhere this year because of the Columbia Complex wildfires that have burned in the Blue Mountains since late August.

Salmon and steelhead

Snake River steelhead fishing is spotty, but the Clearwater is fair. Bobber fishing at the confluence has produced fish most days, but it has been feast or famine. The Grande Ronde is probably the best for steelhead, but there is still not enough water for easy drift boating. Pluggers are doing far better than the fly or bait fishermen.

Vernita Bridge and White Bluffs chinook fishing appears to be picking up. Bigger fish are showing recently.

Chinook fishing near Brewster has not improved as it has in the past years, but the fish that are there are aggressive.

Most are coming on plugs and plug cut herring, but are quite dark.

The latest weekly creel report from WDFW fish biologist Paul Hoffarth indicates an estimated 731 chinook salmon were harvested in the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River near the Tri-Cities.

Anglers averaged one chinook for every 22 hours fished.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife is closing all fishing Saturday near the Chandler power plant on the Yakima River east of Prosser in response to the illegal harvest of fall chinook salmon by snagging.

Under the emergency order, no fishing will be allowed within 400 feet of the power plant through Oct. 22, when the Yakima River fishery is scheduled to close, although that date could change if harvest quotas are met, Hoffarth said.

Spiny ray

Walleye fishing on Roosevelt has been mostly slow. The best luck has been near China Bend and North Gorge.

Smallmouth bass fishing on the Snake is good and the pluggers are catching more channel cats than steelhead.

Anglers are taking perch up to 13 inches from Sprague Lake’s west end.

Trout

WDFW enforcement officers recently conducted boat patrols on Lake Roosevelt and found lots of anglers with lower-than-usual catches of rainbow trout for this time of year.

There have been some positive angler reports, however, from the south end of the lake near the 25-mile marker and west of Keller.

Dworshak Reservoir is down about 80 feet, but trout fishing has been good. Boat ramps at Canyon Creek and Grandad are unusable during the fall, but boaters can still launch at Bruce’s Eddy, Dent and Dworshak State Park.

Bob Jateff, WDFW district fish biologist, said good October trout fishing lakes in the Okanogan are Blue in the Sinlahekin Valley, Ell in the Aeneas Valley, Big Twin near Winthrop and Rat near Brewster.

“These are all under selective-gear rules and should provide good fishing opportunities for both lure and fly anglers,” he said.

Other species

The Northern Pikeminnow reward program has been extended to Oct. 15 on the Snake and portions of the Columbia River.

Anglers earned $4-8 a fish as they caught 212,372 of the salmon-eating predators this season between May 1 and Sept. 24. Info: (800) 858-9015 or on the Web at www.pikeminnow.org.

The sturgeon retention fishery from the Wauna powerlines to Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River resumed Thursday after a two-month hiatus.

Anglers can keep one legal-size white sturgeon per day in those waters Thursday through Saturday until the area harvest guideline is reached.

Hunting

The opening for ducks and geese and the modern-firearms season for deer get started Oct. 14 in Washington.

But before those hunts begin, muzzleloaders hunting deer and elk will take to the field Saturday through next Friday.

Cooler weather and improved access to private timberlands should give blackpowder hunters an advantage over the archers that went before them, said Brian Calkins, an acting regional wildlife manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Quail and Hungarian and chukar partridge hunting opens Saturday in Washington.

Quail numbers are high throughout the region, and chukar numbers appear good. The recent wetter weather has scattered them some, but most are sticking pretty close to summer water.

Waterfowl seasons open Saturday in northern and eastern Idaho, and Oct. 14 in southwestern Idaho and the Magic Valley.

None of the birds tested in Idaho, or anywhere else in North America, has tested positive for the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

An Idaho youth pheasant season opens statewide Saturday and Sunday for all licensed hunters 15 years old or younger. The two-day hunt opens at noon Saturday in Areas 2 and 3, and one-half hour before sunrise in Area 1.

Hunting begins one-half hour before sunrise on Sunday, except on the C.J. Strike, Fort Boise, Montour and Payette River wildlife management areas, where hunting begins at 10 a.m. The regular season opens Oct. 14 in Area 1 and Oct. 21 in Areas 2 and 3.

The deer and elk rifle season for most of the Clearwater Region units begins Tuesday.

IDFG will run hunter check stations east of Kooskia along Highway 12 and up the South Fork of the Clearwater along Highway 14 at Browns Creek. Even hunters without game are required to stop so that their visit may be recorded and used to calculate success rates.

Jim Tabor, WDFW district wildlife biologist, said waterfowl hunters can expect good numbers of ducks and geese for opening weekend in Grant and Adams counties in the Columbia Basin.

“The number of migrant mallards coming to the Basin is expected to be similar to previous years, and locally-produced goose numbers are high,” Tabor said.

Tabor also said deer numbers appear to be as high as any time in the past 20 years.

Deer hunters should find excellent hunting in Chelan and Douglas counties.

Okanogan County deer populations are also good, but hunter access may be restricted from the Tripod Complex Wildfires, particularly in Game Management Units 215 and 224 and the eastern portion of 218.

The east and southwest portions of the Okanogan district are largely unaffected by closures.

Hunters are advised to check access restrictions by calling the Methow Valley Ranger District at (509) 996-4003 or the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest at (509) 826-3795.