North Silver Will Need Time To Develop

North Silver Lake will open April 29 as a fly fishingonly, catch-and-release lake.

However, unless the Fish and Wildlife Department stocks the lake with some surplus broodstock rainbows, the region’s fly fishers won’t spend much time at the lake until next fall. As of now, the agency will release about 5,000 catchable-size fish into the shallow lake.

The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission decided at a recent meeting to make the lake just north of Silver Lake a fly-fishing lake. Commissioners also changed regulations for several other lakes and streams throughout the state for the new season.

Department officials had hoped that both Silver and North Silver could have been treated with rotenone to kill tens of thousands of tench and stunted sunfish, as well as some largemouth bass, rainbows and brown trout.

However, the commission decided to delay the planned rotenone treatment of both lakes until a change can be made in the labeling of rotenone bags. The labeling recommends that rotenone not be applied within a half-mile of a domestic water intake.

Extensive testing has shown that it’s safe to release rotenone near water intakes and that the labeling could be removed, Spokane regional fishery biologist John Whalen said. He added he hopes the two lakes can be rehabilitated next fall.

The Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club, which, among other groups, had recommended that North Silver be designated as a fly fishing-only, catch-and-release lake, had been prepared to pay for sterilized rainbows for stocking. Inasmuch as sterilized fish don’t go though the debilitating spawning cycle, they continue to grow after their second or third year, sometimes weighing more than 15 pounds.

Many sterilized rainbows stocked in Rufus Woods Lake below Grand Coulee Dam have become trophy-sized. Anglers have caught 5- to 17-pounders.

The club has recommended that nonsterilized rainbows be released into North Silver, club official Boyd Matson said.

The purpose of stocking a lake with sterilized rainbows, he said, is to create fishing for large trout. It takes at least three years for the sterilized fish to overtake non-sterilized trout in size.

Because the lake may be rehabilitated next fall, there’s not much point in releasing sterilized rainbows in the lake until after it’s rehabilitated, Matson said.

Whalen said North Silver will be stocked with 8- to 9-inch rainbows this spring. By fall, given the bug numbers in the weed-filled lake, they should be large enough to interest fly fishers.

Meanwhile, the fly club will complete projects to prepare for the opening of the lake, Matson said. Club members have paid for and installed a screen over the culvert at the lower end of the lake to prevent fish from leaving or entering the lake. They have cleaned up and smoothed the bank so that fly fishers can enter the lake easily. The club also will pay for a fence and an aerator to keep the fish alive during the winter months and when oxygen levels drop dramatically in late summer.

All the projects will be completed by April 29, Matson said.

The commission changed regulations for Lake Roosevelt, Rock Creek below Rock Lake and the Little Spokane.

Effective May 1, Whalen said, Lake Roosevelt fishermen will be permitted to keep five rainbows and two kokanee. The kokanee don’t have to be fin-clipped. Under the present regulations, the daily limit is five trout, no more than two over 20 inches. Kokanee are considered trout.

Adipose fins of kokanee hatched at the Colville Indian hatchery and the FWD’s Sherman Creek hatchery are clipped. However, Whalen said, a “fair number” of kokanee enter the big reservoir from the Kootenai and Spokane rivers and there is some shoreline spawning. Those kokanee are considered wild.

Rock Creek from the George Knott Bridge down to the Endicott west road has been designated catch-and-release water. Selective-gear regulations will be in effect.

“We’re working out a management program for the Bureau of Land Management, which bought the Ecure Ranch,” he said.

The creek holds rainbows and brown trout, most of which come from Rock Lake. Under catch-and-release regulations, fishermen no longer will be able to deplete the population every year. Two to three miles of the stream will be on BLM land and open to the public.

Regulations for several miles of the Little Spokane River from the Highway 291 bridge up to the West Branch will coincide with the regulations for lowland lakes as a result of the commissioners’ action, Whalen said. The commission also closed The Chain Lakes on the Little Spokane to the taking of kokanee.