Weekly hunting and fishing report

Thu., Aug. 21, 2014

By Alan Liere spokesmanliere@yahoo.com

Tip of the week

Ken Schueman of Diamond Lake sent me a photo of an inexpensive but effective modified Texas rig he uses for both largemouth and smallmouth. To make one get a five-inch Senko worm, two O- rings, a # 4 snelled hook and about 1/3-inch of a #7 galvanized nail. Slide the O-rings onto the Senko using some sort of a tube, like the Wacky Tool. A ballpoint pen or Sharpie cap will work. One O-ring goes to the middle of the Senko and one a half-inch from the head. Thread the snelled hook beneath the two O-rings with the eye of the hook stopping at the one in the center. Now push the nail into the head end. By turning the hook into the Senko, it becomes fairly weedless, but leave it out and you’ll miss fewer strikes. Schueman says he used a green Senko with flecks, but orange works well around twilight. He says to let it sink, then use a slow, jerky retrieve.

• Braggin’ rights: David Hickman of Richland has set a new state record for the largest tiger muskie caught in Washington waters. The 37.88-pound fish measuring 50.38 inches came from Curlew Lake on July 26. It hit a white spinnerbait. It exceeds the previous record tiger muskie’s weight by more than 6 pounds.

• Overheard: “There must be something about the fish in the Skokomish River. The chinook come onto the bank tail-first when they are hooked in the mouth – some sort of reverse swimming technique unique to these salmon.” (A sarcastic remark made by an angler complaining about the lack of pressure from WDFW on the Skokomish River in Mason County where salmon are being illegally snagged and retained.)

• Heads up: Recent storms have left behind floating debris in the water of several lakes that is waterlogged and very low in the water. Look for little disturbances in the wave pattern to save you from big repairs.

• Since the August 1 opener of the lower Clearwater River, steelheading has been fair, and from its mouth upstream to the Memorial Bridge, catch and keep is allowed. A lot of big B-run fish are reported, but the majority are wild and must be released. Unfortunately, some anglers are not taking time to thoroughly revive their fish before putting them back. This and the warm water, particularly near the mouth, is causing a lot of fish mortality. Make sure your fish are revived and can swim away on their own before releasing them.

• Dworshak Reservoir is dropping about a foot per day. When using mini-camps along the reservoir, remember to leave extra line when tying off your vessel.

Fly Fishing

North Fork Coeur d’Alene fly fishing is fair. The mid-river stretches from Prichard to Big Hank are best. Hopper fishing has been productive at mid-day.

On the Spokane River, hoppers in the afternoon and caddis in the evening are your best dry fly choices, but nymphing will be more productive. Fishing has been good.

For a fun, relaxing day with feisty small trout but no pressure, consider the beautiful Bumping River in Yakima County. This is the perfect time to throw small dries on feeder creeks throughout the state.

The rivers around Missoula, Montana are fishing pretty well, with the Clark Fork probably the best.

Trout and kokanee

Loon Lake kokanee are cooperative most nights, but not every night. Thunderstorms seem to negatively affect the bite. Though graphing a lot of fish, a friend caught only one 13-inch male in front of Granite Point Sunday night. He stopped near the island bay at midnight on the way back to the public launch, however, and quickly caught the remaining 9 fish of his limit. Most were around 11 inches.

Kokanee are also being taken from other northeast district waters including Bead, Sullivan, and Davis lakes in Pend Oreille County and Pierre and Deep lakes in Stevens County. Like Loon, the limit on Sullivan is 10, but it is five on the others.

Kokanee fishing on Dworshak Reservoir near Granddad has been good with limits of 10- to 11-inch fish common. On lake Coeur d’Alene, kokes are beginning to move toward the north end. The fish are small.

The rainbow in Waitts Lake are running about 12 inches and the browns about 14. Fishing is good over the deeper water, with a lot of fish still near the surface. Troll flashers and worm-tipped flies.

Salmon and steelhead

Lake Wenatchee sockeye fishing is still good. The fish are moving toward the mouths of the White and Little Wenatchee rivers and turning a bit but the meat is still very good. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says the fishery will end at the end of August.

Baker Lake still has a lot of bright sockeye and fishing has been decent to good. Troll slowly and sweeten the red hooks with coon shrimp.

Chinook fishing is picking up at Chelan Falls. Both Chelan Falls and Wells Dam are known for a late afternoon and evening bite.

Salmon anglers are still getting a few fish at Brewster – mostly sockeye. The chinook are mostly wild.

Fall chinook are now passing over Bonneville Dam; keep an eye on the daily counts. On Monday, 4,353 fish were counted, almost doubling the previous daily high for the season.

The counts will rise dramatically soon so it’s not too early to begin planning a fishing trip to the Hanford Reach. It was good last year and will be even better this September.

Salmon anglers fishing in ocean waters off Westport, LaPush and Neah Bay can now keep up to two chinook salmon as part of their two-salmon daily limit. Those fishing in Marine Area 1 (Ilwaco) will continue to be limited to one chinook.

Spiny ray

Liberty Lake has booted out several largemouth over 3 pounds recently, mostly by anglers throwing plastics to the edges of docks and weed lines over relatively deep water. The largemouth have also turned on at lakes like Badger, Loon, Deer, Diamond, Silver, Sacheen, Long, Twin and Coffeepot. Once again – docks and weed lines.

Potholes Reservoir anglers are catching a smorgasbord of spiny ray both in the main reservoir and in the various arms. Walleye fisherman are catching big fish, though numbers have dropped recently.

The humps at the mouth of Crab Creek are good. Gary Russell of Moses Lake said he and his wife, Marilyn, kept 30 Potholes perch recently from the Crab Creek area, releasing everything smaller than 10 inches.

Potholes bass fishermen are getting smallmouth as well as largemouth, with the latter coming mostly from the dunes and the former everywhere, especially along the dam face.

Horseshoe Lake is often overlooked as a spiny ray destination, but the little lake north of Spokane has lots of perch and bass in addition to the small kokanee. Other unheralded lakes good for perch are Jump-Off Joe, Waitts, Silver and Coffeepot near Spokane and Avondale, Blue, Hauser and Upper and Lower Twin in Idaho.

Walleye continue to bite nightcrawlers and spinners on Lake Roosevelt.

Other species

It is not unusual to catch a really large channel cat from Potholes Reservoir. Recently, in fact, a small girl landed a 17-pounder from Lind Coulee. A lot of anglers don’t realize that Potholes bullhead also get big, and many consider them better eating than the channel cats. A friend fishing the mouth of Crab Creek recently caught several while drifting a Smile Blade and worm for perch.

Hunting

Active Network, the company that provides Idaho Fish and Game’s online licensing system, was forced to shut down due to technical difficulties associated with the large volume of transactions August 6 for leftover tags. As a result, hundreds of people were unable to complete their transaction. Fish and Game will reimburse those affected with the cost of a resident elk tag, $30.75.

WDFW is seeking comments on proposed alternatives for 2015-17 hunting seasons. They will be posted on WDFW’s website at href=”http://wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/regulations/seasonsetting/”>http://wdfw.wa.gov /hunting/regulations

/seasonsetting/, where people can also provide comments.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com