Anglers Waiting While High Waters Ruin Old Favorites

High water continues to make trouble for anglers.

Pend Oreille River bass tournaments have been flooded out. Trout stocking has been delayed in North Idaho. Nobody knows if fish are dying from toxic mining sediments stirred up in the Clark Fork and Coeur d’Alene river systems.

But the one thing that really gets me is that sign at Amber Lake south of Cheney - the relic of the drought years that says the boat ramp is closed because of low water.

Spring flooding appears to be unraveling benefits anglers have enjoyed from trophy regulations on bass lakes along the lower Coeur d’Alene River. The restrictions on seasons, limits and sizes have allowed more trophy-size bass to survive.

“Any gains we might have had in individual lakes such as Blue and Anderson have been erased,” said Ned Horner, Idaho Fish and Game Department regional fisheries manager.

“The flooding created one big lake down there during the peak, and the fish are scattering everywhere. Who knows which lake they’ll end up in after the water recedes.”

Answering that question will provide plenty of thrills for anglers from July through September.

Streams must wait: The trout-stocking program in North Idaho is about a month behind schedule. Normally, hatchery trucks would have begun hauling fish to lakes in April. This year at that time, most lakes were overflowing with water while some Boundary County lakes were still frozen.

Fish and Game employees have doubled their efforts this month to get most of the lakes stocked. Trucks are scheduled this week to make the season’s first plants of 9- to 10-inch rainbows in Hauser Lake.

However, the lower sections of the Moyie, Coeur d’Alene, St. Maries and St. Joe rivers probably won’t get their traditional plants of rainbows until just before the Fourth of July holiday, Horner said.

A month seems like an eternity for a stream fisher with an urge to wet a line. But the wait is reasonable.

The cost of raising and transporting these fish to streams runs about 50 cents apiece, Horner said. “We’re not about to put them in the river before we think we’ll get the best chance for survival.”

Downstream benefits: Fish stocking of another nature has occurred in many Eastern Washington waters.

Numerous fish were flushed out the spillways of stocked-trout meccas such as Williams and Fishtrap lakes.

“But these fish aren’t necessarily lost to the fishermen,” said Ray Duff, Washington Fish and Wildlife Department regional fish manager. “Those fish would flush to the next lake downstream. The losses would be gains for Downs and Sprague lakes,” he said.

Incidentally, Downs Lake Resort has new management. Check it out.

Canned interest: Catch-and-release fishing isn’t for everyone, but there’s always a new fisher out there ready to be converted.

I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation at Amber Lake. A float tuber paddling to the launch area told anglers on shore that he had caught most of his trout using a specific fly pattern. “I had my best luck with a Six Pack,” he said.

That perked up the ears of a young man who had, to that point, seemed discouraged by the intricacy of rigging up a fly line.

“I think I’m going to like this fly-fishing,” he said.

Dissention in ranks: With Cutthroat Creek as out of control as a teenager’s raging hormones, word has leaked back that two members of the Royal Wulff and Renegade Benevolent Society have strayed afield.

(This analogy was not meant to insinuate that any member of the society can still muster raging hormones even during a caddisfly hatch.)

The Diversity Intolerance Committee is investigating rumors that Virgil Emery and Bill Bennett recently strayed to rainbow trout-infested spring creeks in Montana’s Paradise Valley. They’ve filed an official response, giving the questionable excuse that a fisherman could die trying to fish Cutthroat Creek at flood stage.

This, of course, would be a society member’s ultimate act of martyrdom with a sure seat on the comet leading to the endless mayfly hatch in the sky.

But Emery and Bennett say they couldn’t take the risk. They still have children to feed. In fact, they pulled the old angler trick of showing up at their kids’ weekend soccer games, then slipping away, out of state, almost unnoticed.

The society received no voluntary stream report from Emery or Bennett, quickly arousing suspicions: Either the fishing was so good the errant fly casters don’t want anyone to know, or the fishing was so bad they’re embarrassed to talk about it.

Upon tracking down Emery by cell phone, the Diversity Intolerance Committee appears to have edged closer to the truth.

He said the fishing on the spring creeks was fabulous. “I had an intimate experience with those big gulpers,” he said.

“Do you have any photos?” a committee official asked, seeming to weaken on the course of disciplinary action.

“Actually I do,” Emery said. “But they were early in the day before I figured out how to catch the really big rainbows. And once I figured that out, I lost interest in taking any pictures.”

You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

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