Sprague gets jump start
Sprague Lake has been revived and is open for business after its fishery was eradicated in October.
Hatchery trucks are planting 160,000 of catchable-size rainbow trout to jump-start the year-round fishing lake along Interstate 90 while it’s new warmwater fisheries develop.
The 1,840-acre year-round lake, which straddles Adams-Lincoln county line, is tremendously productive and the trout should boom in size as the water temperatures warm, said Chris Donley, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife district biologist.
As good as the rainbow fishing will be, the lake eventually will be managed as a panfish destination, primarily for bluegills and crappie.
“We’ll stock crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass and channel catfish that will take a few years to grow and reproduce,” Donley said.
“The rainbows will provide good fishing now and over the next few years until the warmwater species are up and running in good numbers and size.”
About 91,000 of the trout stocked in the lake weighed one-third pound, while 65,000 were in the one-fifth pound range. But 3,200 of the planters were beautiful 1 1/2-pound triploid rainbows that were very hungry and aggressive right out of the hatchery truck.
Cow Lake, also treated last fall as part of the Sprague Lake watershed, is receiving about 6,000 catchable-size rainbows.
About 200,000 rainbow trout fingerlings and 80,000 Lahontan cutthroat fingerlings will also be stocked in Sprague’s watershed. Those trout will be pleasing anglers starting next year.
As soon as the region’s other lakes warm and the fish begin moving into shallows to spawn, adult largemouth bass, bluegills and crappie will be captured, transported and released so they can spawn in Sprague Lake. Another 4,000 black crappie and at least 60 channel catfish that were collected from Sprague Lake before last fall’s treatment will be returned to the lake and juvenile warmwater fish species from the Meseberg Hatchery – about 100,000 bluegill, 14,000 largemouth bass and 2,000 crappie – also will be stocked.
The lake is serviced by Sprague Lake Resort, Four Seasons Campground and one public access.