Fishermen face large boatload of rule changes

Life is good here in the Inland Northwest, where periodic frenzies of changes to fishing regulations tend to be about as close as we get to suffering a disaster.

Washington and Idaho are giving the public a last chance to panic with an array of proposals poised to be approved this fall and enacted in 2006.

The biggest losers in this year’s proposals will be among the tiniest group of sportsmen in the region. Archers who get their kicks out of bowhunting for carp are about to get spanked by a ban on Lake Roosevelt.

Somewhere, somehow, somebody read that it’s against federal law to impale a carp with an arrow or spear in a national recreation area even though a few sportsmen have been doing it quietly for decades at Lake Roosevelt.

You can hook walleyes and shoot geese and swat mosquitoes, but apparently you won’t be able to sling fishing points or chuck a spear at a non-native nuisance fish. Go figure.

However, most of the proposals for Washington and Idaho make some sense. Here’s a sampling:

In Washington, statewide rule changes allow electric motors to be used at waters with selective gear restrictions and require that fishing nets be knotless to reduce injury to the fish.

In Eastern Washington:

•The daily limit for brook trout would be increased in the Pend Oreille River watershed.

•Catch-and-release trout fishing would be expanded in the Methow River.

•The Spokane River catch-and-release fishery upstream from Upriver Dam would be extended to run June 1-March 15. Currently, it ends Oct. 31.

•Use of motorized boats for fishing on the Lower Spokane River would be extended upstream to Plese Flats.

•Kokanee limits would be doubled in Pend Oreille County at Horeseshoe Lake and Sullivan Lake. (Surveys indicate the kokanee population in Sullivan is booming, increasing from 3,500 in 2002 to 14,000 last year.)

•Coffeepot Lake’s season would be extended 15 days to close Sept. 30. The daily trout limit would be reduced from two fish any size to one trout with an 18-inch minimum. The bass limit would revert to the more restrictive statewide rules (Take a deep breath): No minimum size, only bass less than 12 inches or greater than 17 inches and a daily limit of five, no more than one more than 17 inches.

•Lake Roosevelt’s bass rules would go the other way, dropping the statewide rules and going to a more liberal daily limit of 10 bass, with no minimum size, and only one of which may be greater than 14 inches. Apparently the smallmouth population is huge but stunted and needs to be thinned.

•Lake Roosevelt’s walleye rules would be changed (again), increasing the daily limit from five to eight and requiring that no more than one fish more than 18 inches be retained.

•Tucannon River impoundments would get a “no more than two trout over 13 inches” restriction added to the current five-fish limit.

Comment by Nov. 18. The commission will adopt regulations in February.

The complete rule proposals package is on the Fish and Wildlife Department’s Web site, http://wdfw.wa.gov.

Idaho Fish and Game biologists have made several proposals for 2006 that could affect anglers in North Idaho. Among them:

•Family fishing waters would expand to include Antelope and Bull Moose lakes. Family Fishing Waters are designated to have simplified rules that encourage family fishing trips.

•Extend Spirit Lake kokanee season to year-round. Surveys indicate kokanee have recovered in the lake. Daily limit would remain at 15.

•Quality and trophy bass rules would be enacted on Pend Oreille and the Pend Oreille River from the railroad bridge at Sandpoint downstream to Washington. From Jan. 1 to June 30, anglers would be required to release all bass. From July 1 to Dec. 31, anglers would be allowed two bass with none between 12 and 16 inches. Rules would also prevent any weigh-in tournaments Jan. 1 to June 30.

•Clearwater River steelheaders would not be allowed to use bait during the catch-and-release steelhead season, Aug. 1 to Oct. 14 from U.S. Highway 12 bridge at Lewiston upstream to the Orofino Bridge.

Info: IFG Panhandle region office, (208) 769-1414.

Political storm: Connections between fish, wildlife and environmental politics elude some shallow minds.

But those of us in the business of writing about these issues have no moral and ethical choice but to buck the tide.

Here’s what Bob Marshall, outdoor writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune said in an e-mail following Hurricane Katrina, noting that the newspaper probably won’t be running fishing reports for a while.

“I’m not surprised this has happened. I’ve been writing about this growing threat due to the eroding coast for 15 years. These storms were always dangerous, but when we had 50 miles of marsh between us and the Gulf instead of 25 miles, there was much less impact.

“People always asked me ‘When will the nation wake up?’ My answer was, ‘When there’s 5 feet of water in the French Quarter from a Cat 4 or 5 storm, and then insurance companies go broke, the oil and gas infrastructure that supports the nation is a wreck, oil prices soar and the nation is faced with a multibillion disaster cleanup.

“Unfortunately, I was right. It doesn’t make me feel good at this moment.”