Anglers Can’t Keep Bull Trout, Panel Says

Starting in January, anglers will no longer be able to keep the bull trout they catch in Lake Pend Oreille and the Clark Fork River.

Those were the last places in the Inland Northwest where the native fish could legally be kept. The Idaho Fish and Game Commission voted Thursday to end the harvest and remove any chance that it is causing bull trout numbers to decline.

“The commission feels really bad about having to do that,” state fisheries chief Steve Huffaker said on Friday.

There is no proof that the annual harvest of 2,000 bull trout is hurting the fish population, he said. Commissioners are convinced that damaged spawning streams are the biggest problem facing the bull trout.

North Idaho commissioner Richard Hansen was the only one to vote against the new catch-and-release rule for bull trout.

“He said he was sick and tired of sportsmen having to pay the price for things that weren’t their fault,” said Huffaker, who attended the commission meeting in Boise.

The Lake Pend Oreille Club, a sportsmen’s group, had opposed the new rules Federal officials are pressuring the state to act, said club president Bill Schaudt, because the bull trout are dying elsewhere and could be listed as an endangered species.

“We believe it’s being done strictly for political reasons, not biological reasons,” Schaudt said of the closure. “We feel this is a fairly healthy, stable (bull trout) population.”

Most anglers fishing from boats don’t target bull trout, Schaudt said, but catch them while seeking mackinaw. Both species take the same bait, and live in the same places.

The exception occurs in the spring, when some fishermen along the north shore set out to catch bull trout.

There’s peer pressure among Lake Pend Oreille Club members to release bull trout as a conservation effort, Schaudt said.

In other action that will displease some anglers, the Fish and Game Commission changed the rules for steelhead fishing this fall.

Sportsmen will have to release all steelhead they catch on the Clearwater River upstream from the Memorial Bridge at Lewiston. The catch-and-release rules also apply to the North, Middle and South forks of the Clearwater.

All steelhead longer than 30 inches must be released if caught in the Clearwater downstream of the Memorial Bridge. The same rule will apply to the Snake River from the Washington-Oregon state line downstream to the Snake’s confluence with the Clearwater.

The changes were made to ensure that hatchery managers will have enough broodstock and eggs to produce future generations of the ocean-going trout.

The steelhead that are 30 inches or larger comprise a separate run than the smaller fish. Based on the number of those larger fish coming back from the Pacific so far this year, final returns may be less than half of those that came back in 1994, said fisheries coordinator Sharon Kiefer.

Last year there were barely enough of the larger steelhead to meet hatchery needs, she said. “Each adult returned to the hatchery will be crucial.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: What’s up Federal officials are pressuring the state to act because bull trout are dying elsewhere and could be listed as an endangered species.