Panhandle rule: No-kill for cutts

A landmark change in North Idaho trout fishing regulations has occurred this weekend.

Starting Saturday, all cutthroat trout caught in the Spokane River drainage – that includes all of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe rivers – must be released.

And the trout fishing season in the drainage has been extended to year-round.

“We started looking into this in the spring, when there’s an exodus of people driving across the Panhandle to fish the March and April pre-runoff hatches in the Clark Fork River (of Montana),” said Chip Corsi, Idaho Fish and Game Department Panhandle Region manager.

“We couldn’t come up with a good biological reason why they shouldn’t be able to stop and fish the Coeur d’Alene River for cutthroat,” he added, noting that fishing in the drainage streams had been closed each year from the end of February until the last Saturday in May.

“Not everybody agrees with the catch-and-release rules, but we got reasonably good support for it in our public meetings and we’re starting to hear a lot of folks get really excited about it,” Corsi said.

Anglers who want to harvest trout from streams can still catch brook trout and rainbows in a number of rivers as well as whitefish, which are abundant and overlooked in many streams, Corsi said.

Cutthroats tend to stack up in some portions of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe rivers after in April. “They would be vulnerable to overharvest in that period, but not with the catch-and-release regulations in place,” Corsi said.

Other Panhandle rules that kick in this season:

•Bass limits remain at six a day in most waters, but the minimum size has been removed for largemouth on most waters and for smallmouth region-wide.

“Smallmouth are starting to run rampant and we need to get after them,” he said.

•Moyie River trout fishing is open year-round.

•Lake Pend Oreille cutthroat trout must be released, complying with catch-and-release rules already in effect on the Clark Fork River.

•Several tributary streams, including those to Hayden Lake, will be opened to trout fishing, and restrictions are being removed from the bays at Hayden.

Check Idaho’s 2008-2009 Fishing Seasons and Rules pamphlet for details.