New Idaho Regs Keep Barbless-Hook Rules

The Idaho Fish and Game Commission last month approved fishing rules for the years 2000 and 2001, but dropped the plan for a statewide end to rules requiring anglers to use barbless hooks in certain trout management waters.

A proposal to lower the statewide daily trout limit from six to five was also dropped.

Both of those rules will remain as they were in 1998-1999.

Most of the changes from the previous two-year regulation period were in the Panhandle Region, where numerous changes were made to simplify what had been a complex system of regulations on the Spokane River drainage and, at the same time, provide protection to native cutthroat.

Also in the Panhandle, kokanee limits were reduced on most lakes to protect the fish, which have suffered from fluctuating water levels damaging shoreline spawning beds and from floods flushing the fish out of lakes.