Hunting & Fishing

Fishing, Washington

Barring a drastic change in the weather pattern, anglers may be fishing through ice at a few Eastern Washington lakes the final week of the year.

Ice has been forming and melting at such popular lakes as Fourth of July and Hog Canyon. There wasn’t enough ice at any of the lakes in Eastern Washington earlier this week to support anglers safely.

Most anglers are uneasy when the ice is less than 3 inches thick. Consequently, they won’t take a chance on a cold dunking at lakes where the foolhardy will fish.

This is the first season in several years Fourth of July and Hog Canyon have been virtually ice-free until nearly the end of December. In past years, the lakes have been ice-covered before Christmas.

Both Hog Canyon and Fourth of July have attracted numerous anglers on weekends. Fastest fishing is at Hog Canyon. However, the rainbows are larger, a few 22 inches long, at Fourth of July.

Only a few have been fishing Sprague Lake. Most will wait until the lake is ice-covered. With the bluegill population down dramatically from the highs of 1990-92, most of the fish anglers catch this winter will be perch. Some walleyes and rainbows will be caught through the ice.

Such lakes as Silver, Clear, Newman, Eloika and Waitts are near freezing, but anglers still were fishing from boats earlier this week.

Shore fishermen have been hooking 13- to 21-inch rainbows along Lake Roosevelt, fishing guide John Carruth of Davenport said. The trout average 16 to 17 inches.

“The fishing has been spotty,” Carruth said. “Fishermen do well one day and poor the next.”

Carruth said walleyes are deep and fishing has been slow. He reported that a friend recently found walleyes at 70-80 feet deep.

Trout, spiny ray, Idaho

Most anglers are still waiting for lakes to be capped with 3-4 inches of ice. Meantime, some are fishing for trout, perch, northern pike and crappies at several lakes.

Fernan, Hauser, Rose and Cocolalla have been yielding some trout, Jeff Smith of Fins & Feathers shop at Coeur d’Alene said.

Pike fishermen have been baiting their hooks with herring, Smith said. They’ve been fishing Lake Coeur d’Alene and a few of the lakes adjacent to the lower Coeur d’Alene River.

Rose Lake has been good for perch and crappies.

Steelhead

Most tributaries to the Snake River probably will be low and clear enough for fair to good fishing this weekend. Such streams as the Walla Walla and Tucannon were still out of shape last weekend as the result of rainstorms and mild temperatures the previous week.

Steelhead fishing was excellent along the Touchet and the upper Grande Ronde last weekend.

Fisheries biologist Art Viola said 25 anglers averaged 3.8 hours per fish along the Touchet and 5.7 along the Ronde from Bogan’s to the Washington-Oregon line.

Fishing was slow near Little Goose Dam. Thirty-four anglers averaged 23.8 hours per steelhead. Water temperature was 42 degrees, still high enough for the steelhead to move, but there apparently weren’t many steelhead in the area.

Shore fishing has been slow at Lower Granite, with anglers hooking only a few steelhead each day. Incidentally, more than 80,000 steelhead have been counted at the dam this year. A few thousand are still between Ice Harbor and Lower Granite and will move up the system next spring.

Nearly all who fish above and below dams use bait, usually shrimp, below large bobbers. Those who fish above Clarkston plunk or drift bait in holding water.

Bobber fishing is popular in the relatively slow water of the Clearwater between Lewiston and Orofino.

Waterfowl

Thousands of ducks and geese moved from the Columbia Basin back to Spokane region lakes and streams during last week’s mild weather. Hunters reported having good luck from the Pend Oreille River in Pend Oreille County to Long Lake in Spokane County.

Most of the birds that moved back to the region probably have returned to the Columbia Basin, where they can find harvested corn fields.

Hunting pressure probably will be heavy on and near the Potholes Reservoir and Moses Lake.

Biologist Mark Quinn of Ephrata said 100,000 ducks, mostly mallards, have been using Moses Lake for resting. Plenty of ducks are in the northern Basin for good shooting, he said.

The Kootenai National Refuge in North Idaho and Columbia and Umatilla refuges in Washington and Oregon were closed to hunting earlier this week because of the shutdown of some federal agencies.

Upland birds

The relatively few who have been hunting the Moses and Grand coulees in the Basin for chukars have done well, wildlife agents said. The coulees are probably the best places to hunt for the partridges in Eastern Washington.

However, a few hard-working hunters have taken limits of chukars along the Snake River breaks in Asotin County. The chukar population there is only a fraction of the populations of the last few years, but there are enough birds for hunters with good dogs to get some shooting.

Quail hunting has been fair to good in brushy draws along the Palouse River, the Snake River breaks and in the Yakima region.

Pheasants are so scarce that nearly all have given up hunting them. However, there are a few spots where hunters have seen good numbers of roosters. One group of hunters reported flushing 20 to 30 roosters in the Lamont area, but the birds were so wild they didn’t get close enough for shots.

Salmon

Anglers hooked good numbers of 6- to 11-pound chinook salmon at Lake Coeur d’Alene last weekend despite the fact the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe rivers poured muddy water into the big lake, Smith said.

The north end of the lake, he said, isn’t nearly as murky as the south end.

Most productive terminal setup last weekend, Smith said, was herring in a plastic helmet. Two types of helmets, the Crippled Anchovy and the Anchovy Special, are being used. They were manufactured in Canada.

The salmon were 50 to 100 feet deep, Smith said.

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