Future Promising For Kokanee Salmon Fish Biologists Find Spawning Numbers Down, But More Nests In Higher Winter Water Level

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Friday, December 27, 1996:) Correction A graphic in Thursday’s newspaper incorrectly overstated the amount of spawning gravel available to kokanee salmon on Lake Pend Oreille. A five-foot increase in the winter lake level adds more than 2 million square feet of spawning gravel.

Fish biologists had some bad news and some good news after wrapping up their December count of spawning kokanee salmon in Lake Pend Oreille.

The bad news is that the number of spawning fish is near rock-bottom. At their peak, only 47 fish were found laying their eggs along the lake shoreline.

That’s drastically lower than the 20,000 to 30,000 found spawning in the 1950s.

But biologists do have evidence of many more nests being laid in the shoreline gravel.

“We believe the kokanee may be using the new spawning gravel made available by keeping the lake higher during the winter this year,” said Melo Maiolie, project leader with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

This winter is the first since the mid-60s that the lake’s level is being maintained at a higher level.

Maiolie and other research biologists have found many kokanee nests along the newly inundated shoreline gravel. The fish bury their eggs, leaving a clean spot of gravel where the nest is.

Most of the fish and “redds” - as the nests are called - have been found near Bayview.

“That’s the last stronghold for spawning,” Maiolie said. “That’s where most of the spawning kokanee go back to. It’s going to take a little while for them to see those new areas.”

Raising the winter lake level is an experiment agreed to by Fish and Game, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which manages the downstream Albeni Falls Dam), the Bonneville Power Administration, the Northwest Power Planning Council and the University of Idaho.

Fish biologists and anglers have noticed a steady drop in the population of kokanee since the Corps of Engineers lowered the winter lake level from 2,056 feet in elevation to 2,051 feet in the mid-60s.

That exposed more than 2 million square feet of spawning gravel, putting it out of reach of the kokanee when they needed it most. It also forced the kokanee to spawn in poorer quality gravel, covered with sand and silt.

“Since that time, the decline started to happen,” said Ned Horner, regional fisheries manager.

About 1 million fish were caught annually in the ‘50s. As the numbers dropped, commercial fishing of kokanee was banned in 1973.

In 1991, only about 200,000 fish were caught, but many were hatchery fish.

The decline of the kokanee also affected the lake’s Kamloops rainbow trout, which feed on the land-locked kokanee.

Fearing that the trophy trout were disappearing, the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club cancelled its annual fishing derby this year.

Under the inter-agency agreement, the lake level will be kept at 2,055 feet for three years, which is high enough to inundate about 2 million square feet of gravel, Horner said.

After three years, the level will return to a lower elevation again.

That short time span won’t be enough to recover the fish population, but it will give biologists more information.

“The whole purpose is to determine whether or not it works,” Horner said. “If so, then we can come up with a strategy to meet the goals of hydropower and flood management, but also add a productive fishery to that.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: More spawning area, fewer fish