Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Derby Spokesman Laments Poor Fishing Debate Surfaces Over Right Path To Take For Lake Coeur ‘D Alene

Rich Landers Outdoors Editor

Anglers are calling foul this week, during the poorest fishing in the 14-year history of the Big One chinook salmon derby at Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Large chinook salmon have virtually disappeared from the lake.

“Last year, which wasn’t a good year, we weighed 100 to 150 fish by this time,” said Steve Mitch, spokesman for the weeklong derby that ends Sunday.

So far this year, more than 800 participants have checked in about 20 chinooks. The leader is a 22-pound, 9-ouncer caught by Ernie Crossley of Spokane.

“I’ve become very familiar with the grumbling this week,” said Jim Fredericks, Idaho Fish and Game Department biologist in Coeur d’Alene.

“It’s been a slow year for chinook fishing. The three derbies this year have had poor catch rates, about 100 hours per fish. Two years ago, the rate was more like 20 or 30 hours per fish.”

Said Mitch, “Fishermen haven’t thought there were enough chinooks in the lake for a long time. A season like this just brings the sentiment to a boiling point.”

Based on natural production and numbers of stocked fish two and three years ago, biologists expected the fishing to be as good as ever this year.

“But it hasn’t panned out that way,” Fredericks said. “We’ve had two extremely high-water years back to back. That’s very unusual.

“When trying to fine-tune a predator fishery, the main thing is to be patient. The consequences of overreacting and putting in too many chinooks could be devastating.”

Mitch isn’t convinced.

“Fishermen are aware of the flooding, but they’re also aware that biologists have been destroying redds up the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe Rivers,” he said.

Redds are the nests chinook salmon make when they spawn.

The lake’s fish management plan calls for an annual June plant of about 40,000 chinooks running 3-5 inches. In addition, biologists allow roughly 30,000 chinook salmon to be produced naturally by spawners in the lake’s tributaries.

A few years ago, biologists began destroying some salmon redds with high-pressure water hoses.

“We’re trying to eliminate chinook spawning in the St. Joe river because we’re afraid they could really get out of hand,” Fredericks said.

“There’s so much good spawning habitat up there, it could become impossible to destroy enough nests. There’s also a lot at stake up there, with the world-class native cutthroat trout fishery.”

Biologists are trying to limit the redds in the Coeur d’Alene system to about 100 - the number needed to naturally produce about 30,000 chinook fry.

“If we overreact to this year’s dismal fishery, we could cause a chain reaction,” Fredericks said.

Chinook salmon, introduced to Lake Coeur d’Alene in 1981, have had the desired effect of thinning out the once-stunted kokanee populations. Kokanee are now in the more respectable 10-inch range.

“But if chinook numbers go up quickly, we could have a collapse in the kokanee populations and that would be the undoing of everything,” Fredericks said.

Mitch believes other factors affecting the fishery should be investigated.

Anglers who used to fish for chinooks in the summer are now fishing virtually year-round. “We’re catching more fish,” Mitch said. “That means we should be allowing more fish to be produced to make up for it.

“And nobody seems to be looking at reducing the kokanee fishing limit from 25 a day.”

Stocking more chinooks to spawn in the past few years wouldn’t necessarily have provided more fish this summer, Fredericks said.

“These fish are born and bred to swim downstream until they find no more current,” the biologist said. “In high-water years, most of them are simply going to leave the lake.”

, DataTimes