Spilling the beans

A Washington fisherman with an inquisitive mind, the discipline to take notes and an itch to travel has breached angling tradition in a series of tell-all guidebooks.

John E. Moore of Mount Vernon has published six books in the past year detailing the access and fishing opportunities he’s experienced in 600 lakes from Washington, through the Idaho Panhandle and into Western Montana.

Raised in a commercial fishing family, Moore took his home-grown angling prowess to Western Washington mountains at an early age. The 51-year-old angler has never lost his urge for another trip to explore the lake over the next ridge.

Along the way, he’s caught 10 state-record fish, with up to five in the books at one time.

He has completed files on 914 lakes and unprocessed data on many more.

Until recently, his notes rarely circulated beyond family and a few state biologists.

If anything, publishing the books kicked Moore into a higher gear.

In 2007 alone, he landed fish in 106 different waters, and that doesn’t count a dozen or so lakes where he tried but didn’t catch a fish.

“I started running out of new opportunities here in northwestern Washington,” said Moore, who works for the Skagit Public Utilities District. “I spent a lot of time in winter looking in maps for places I wanted to try. I started fishing Idaho and Montana lakes in 1994.

“I prefer areas where people aren’t everywhere. I’m especially attracted to high lakes.”

“Every year I try to make a point of going to lakes I haven’t been to yet. Over time, it’s added up to lot of places.”

His habit of snapping photos of every lake he visited evolved into taking notes and keeping records. When he got his first computer, he began building files on all the lakes.

“I was able to track different patterns such as times of year the fish are the most active, what they would hit one time of the year over another. It was all strictly for personal use.”

But last winter, at the age of 51, Moore began publishing data from his files. The first in the series, “A Fisherman’s Guide to Selected High Lakes of Northwest Washington,” covers Skagit, Snohomish and Whatcom County lakes.

“When I eliminated all the unnamed lakes I’d fished in that area (above elevation 2,500 feet), I still had to drop 25 lakes to get down to 100 for the book,” he said.

Others books in the series include “Lakes of Northeastern Washington and Northern Idaho” featuring many lakes in the Selkirk Mountains. The book for northcentral Washington covers Okanogan, Ferry, Chelan and Douglas counties while the southcentral book, which is just being released, covers Grant, Kittitas and a portion of Adams counties.

He’s currently compiling his data for another volume on Western Montana.

His guides detail “selected lakes.” In other words, he’s not trying to cover every lake he’s visited, but rather the lakes his research indicated are worth exploring with rod and reel.

Some of the lakes are accessible by vehicle; others require hiking up to 9 miles. Still others require serious bushwhacking.

Moore made his mark in northeastern Washington well before publishing his books. Fishing in Pend Oreille County with Deer Park taxidermist Garry Blew, Moore caught the state-record westslope cutthroat in 2004 out of Muskegon Lake. That fish eclipsed the record he’d caught four years earlier in Halfmoon Lake.

“I’ve held the cutthroat record multiple times, including a fish from the mountain lakes near Twisp,” he said, noting that those records have all been exceeded by other anglers.

Currently, he still holds state records for three species: black bullhead catfish, suckers and saltwater sculpins.

Moore’s living room resembles the inside of an aquarium, with 41 mounts of various fish species he’s caught.

Each salmon species is represented, plus trout — rainbow, cutthroat, tiger, bull, Eastern brook, golden and steelhead. The wall also features grayling, bass, bluegill, Dolly Varden, pike, mackinaw, catfish, sucker, crappie, sculpin and bullhead.

“The only fish I’ve kept out of Idaho is a bluegill, a 1-pounder out of Bull Run Lake (near Cataldo in 2003). It was a nice looking fish,” he said.

Blew, who’s won taxidermy awards for artistry, has mounted all of Moore’s fish since the 1980s.

The Idaho Selkirks have intrigued Moore because of the area’s wide range of lakes requiring short to long hikes. “I caught fish in 13 of the 14 Panhandle lakes I fished in two days last summer,” he said.

His books reflect the fluid landscape of fishing waters. “Things change,” he said, noting that fish management policies evolve, storms alter lakes, illegal fish are introduced, access is altered. “I was reviewing some of my directions this summer and found that Idaho had moved an entire intersection, fowling up my directions.

His directions for McDowell Lake in Stevens County have been thrown off somewhat by route changes in the Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge.

“In the beginning of each book, I address road changes, access changes, and point out that there are a lot more gates than there used to be,” he said. “The details are only as current as my last visit. That’s the best I can do.”

For northeastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle, anglers must hike as much as 9 miles to reach some of the lakes.

“The terrain in that area isn’t as rough as what I’m used to in the North Cascades.”

The hiking opportunities are really good. Inland Northwest high lakes tend to be free of snow weeks earlier than lakes in the North Cascades, he said.

While he’s gleened information, including stocking schedules, from state fisheries managers, he’s also provided information from his research back to the agencies.

“Idaho and Montana stocking records are useful for determining when and where to go, but they’re not as easy to get in Washington,” he said.

Some lakes are stocked annually while others are stocked as infrequently as every seven years or so.

Lakes with brook trout may not be stocked at all. Unlike rainbows, cutthroats, goldens and grayling, brook trout do not require access to flowing inlet or outlet streams in order to successfully spawn. Since they often overpopulate and become stunted in mountain lakes, brook trout catch limits tend to be much more liberal than for other species.

Different management strategies can present surprises, even for Moore. “I found tiger trout at a hike-in Washington high lake north of Loop Loop pass between Twisp an Okanogan. I was expecting to catch brook trout, but I caught a couple tiger trout running 11 inches.

But that’s nothing compared to the shock an angler might have if he hooks into one of the toothy tiger muskies Idaho Fish and Game has planted in a couple of Idaho Panhandle high lakes to try to control brook trout numbers.

The writing in the books is basic and the photos are simple and documentary. “A lot of (the pictures) were taken with an old 126 cartridge camera that my grandmother gave me when I was a kid,” he said.

“The size of fish in the backcountry lakes tends to vary a lot,” Moore said. “Some lakes don’t have a lot of feed, so fish tend to stay small. In others, the fish will overpopulate and that will stunt their growth and they will stay small. Some lakes are just richer and you will get bigger fish. So there is quite a range.”

At the lakes included in the Northwestern Washington high lakes book, Moore said he’s caught fish from 4 inches long to more than 3 pounds.

On the other hand, some lakes produced no fish at all.

“I’ve had that happen many times,” he said. “And many of the lakes, I spent more time getting back to them than I did actually fishing. But at least I can say I’ve been there.”

(Vince Richardson of the Skagit Valley Herald contributed to this story.)