Good Year Expected In Basin
Most Washington anglers who fish in the Columbia Basin for the April 25 fishing season opener will concentrate at a few lakes on and near Sun Lakes State Park southwest of Coulee City.
The most popular waters will be Blue, Park and Dry Falls lakes. Lenore, which was opened March 1 to catch-and-release fishing, also will attract good numbers of anglers.
This should be a good year to fish Blue and Park lakes, which were treated with rotenone in 1996. Blue was planted with 250,000 rainbow fry and Park got 150,000 fry.
Jeff Korth, fisheries biologist, said conditions were ideal when the two popular lakes were treated with rotenone. As a result, he believes, nearly all the stunted bass and perch, as well as sculpins, were killed. Sculpins were a major problem at the lakes. They competed with trout for food.
To keep the sculpins in check, the Fish and Wildlife Department released 10,000 brown trout into each lake. Browns love to eat sculpins.
The lakes now should hold some good-sized trout, as well as plenty of yearling fish.
As usual, Dry Falls Lake, a selective gear lake, likely will attract several hundred anglers, many of them fly fishers, on opening weekend. Although the lake was planted with 2,000 sterile rainbows last year, the fish aren’t large enough yet to be considered trophy fish.
Most of the trout that anglers catch on opening weekend likely will be 12 to 14 inches long. However, there are some 2- to 3-year-old trout in the lake.
Other lakes on Sun Lakes State Park land are Castle, Perch, Deep and Rainbow.
Because Lenore is near Blue, Park and Dry Falls, it undoubtedly will attract good numbers of anglers hoping to hook a few of the out-sized Lahontan cutthroat.
Midges should be hatching in good numbers by opening day. Most fly fishers will use chironomid pupa imitations at Lenore, as well as Dry Falls. It’s too early for damselflies, dragonflies and mayflies to hatch at the lakes.
More than 40 Basin lakes were opened to fishing on March 1. To avoid big crowds, some anglers will fish lakes such as Warden, the Hamptons, Lenice, Nunnally and the small lakes near George.
Lenice and Nunnally, selective gear lakes, were opened to fishing March 1. They’ve attracted more than 50 anglers a day on weekends since they were opened.
Tackle box checklist Strip spinning and bait-casting reels and replace with fresh line. Pull spools from reels and clean, using cotton swabs. Oil lightly. Inspect rods and line guides. Loose or broken guides should be repaired. Use nylon thread to bind the guide feet onto the rod, then paint the bindings with rod varnish or one of the new plastic coatings. Tip-tops often are simply cemented in place. If one is loose, remove it, scrape the old glue off the rod tip and fasten the tip-top with a hot-glue stick (available for pennies in most tackle shops and hardware shops; it’s smart to carry a glue stick and matches in your tackle box). When buying a replacement, take the rod tip section to the tackle shop to make sure the new tip-top fits as snugly as possible. Wash reel seat and buff off any corrosion. Sort tackle, tossing out any mummified worms that may have filtered to the bottom of the box. Be sure to purchase your fishing license.