Fishing Improved Up North

Thu., April 20, 2000

Fenton Roskelley Correspondent

Unlike last year, cold water and ice shouldn’t be a problem at stocked fishing lakes in Stevens and Pend Oreille county lakes when Washington’s general fishing seasons opens April 29.

As usual, Loon and Deer will be the destination of fishermen hoping to boat a big mackinaw trout or two, as well as a few kokanee. Both lakes have received big plants of catchable-size rainbows.

This should be a good year for the small lakes in the Little Pend Oreille chain. The lakes were treated with rotenone in 1997 and have been stocked with cutthroat, some of which will be more than 12 inches long this year. Among the lakes are Gillette, Heritage, Sherry and Thomas.

Jumpoff Joe, Waitts and Fan lakes have large populations of spiny-rayed fish, but anglers will catch some trout stocked by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department the last few years. Fishing probably will be fair.

Fly-fishers gravitate to specially managed lakes, such as Bayley, a fly fishing-only lake on the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge. The lake holds good numbers of big rainbows and a few large brook trout.

Another lake on the refuge, McDowell, will yield some big rainbows and a few brook trout. It’s a fly fishing-only, catch-and-release lake. Most of the cutthroat that fly fishers will catch at Browns, a fly fishing-only lake, will be 8-9 inches long.

Tiny Muskegon in Pend Oreille County now is a selective gear lake. It could produce some big cutthroat.

Marshall, a 189-acre lake in Pend Oreille County, was rehabbed last year and has been stocked with catchable-size rainbows. Annual plants of fingerling cutthroat will be resumed later this year.

The top-producing lakes in Ferry County should be Ellen and the lakes on the Colville Indian reservations. Ellen, a 78-acre lake, usually is one of the bright spots in Ferry County each season; it holds plenty of rainbows for fast action.

The Colville Tribe opened its lakes to non-Indians on April 15. The Twins and Buffalo should provide good fishing through the season.

Curlew, 870 acres, holds largemouth bass, tiger muskies and rainbows. Biologists expect fishing to be fair for planted and net-pen-reared rainbows. The tiger muskies were first stocked in 1998 to control the large pikeminnow (formerly known as squawfish) population and are not yet large enough to keep.

A few small lakes, including Swan, Long and Ferry, will attract many fishers. Swan, bordered by a Forest Service campground, holds rainbows. Long, a fly fishing-only lake, has 8- to 14-inch cutthroat. Nineteen-acre Ferry has rainbows.

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