Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for May 28
Fly fishing
The Clark Fork River in Montana should be on your fly fishing agenda going forward. There have been great reports from the lower Clark Fork around St. Regis recently.
The Spokane River opened May 23. Flows are at a level rarely seen this early in the season, so take advantage of some prime fishing opportunity. Caddis are hatching in force especially in the evenings. Keep an eye out for salmonflies.
Silver Bow Fly Shop indicates fishing is pretty solid on the St. Joe and the North Fork Coeur d’Alene rivers. Take a good variety of flies as there has been a little of everything hatching.
Trout and kokanee
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff has been stocking 15.5 million trout and kokanee in more than 500 lowland lakes statewide, and the cooler water this spring has been a benefit to the trout fishing, which has been extended further into the season than normal. Anglers can find trout stocking information on WDFW’s website, and they can also participate in the Trout Derby, with tagged trout stocked in more than 100 lakes; Hundreds of prizes are available. To find out if a lake has been stocked with tagged trout, go to the WDFW website and click on the Trout Derby page.
The south end of Lake Coeur d’Alene Lake is booting out some of the largest kokanee in recent years at 14 to 15 inches. Trolled Apexes are taking a lot of these.
Slow drifting Power Bait or worms in 20 feet of water are taking some nice Fishtrap Lake rainbow. At Clear Lake, you have a chance at brown trout, rainbow trout bass or bluegill. Williams Lake rainbow continue to bite, but the dock fishery has slowed considerably.
Steelhead and salmon
Marine Area 11 (Tacoma-Vashon Island) salmon season opens daily beginning June 1, seven days per week, except year-round piers (Des Moines Pier, Les Davis Pier, Point Defiance Park Boathouse Dock, and Redondo Pier). Daily limit is two including no more than one chinook. Chum and wild chinook must be released. Commencement Bay (east of a line from Cliff House Restaurant to Sperry Ocean Dock) is closed to fishing for or retention of salmon.
A section of the North Fork Nooksack River from the Highway 9 Bridge to the yellow marker at the upstream side of Kendall Creek Hatchery property is now open to hatchery spring chinook fishing and retention.
A friend said he fished the confluence of the Little and Main Salmon rivers in Riggins, Idaho, Friday and Saturday but the run had not gotten that far upstream yet. IDFG checkers recorded catches a few miles downstream by boat and bank anglers, so this Thursday through Sunday should be better fishing in the confluence.
Spiny ray
Crappie have been biting evenings at Tiger Slough – a lot of them quite small, but a few up to 12 inches. Smallmouth bass are bigger, and fishing with a jig will bring numerous strikes. There are also a lot of small perch.
Bottom bouncers and Double Whammies are taking Lake Roosevelt walleye in 12 to 20 feet of water. Bass fishing on Banks has been better than the walleye fishing.
Moses Lake walleye are becoming more aggressive, but the smallmouth bass are monopolizing the action. Walleye fishing on Potholes Reservoir has been spotty.
Liberty Lake anglers are finding a lot of small bass during the day, but at night, larger fish are hitting top waters. Newman Lake has also been good for largemouth bass, and the crappie bite can often be excellent for 11- to 13-inch fish. The Twin Lakes near the town of Inchelium is good for smaller bass, and big crappie. Usually, Twin is the place to go for big bass this time of year, but these seem to have taken a few weeks off.
Anglers launching at the Texas Rapids Recreation on the Snake River and running up to a spot just below Little Goose Dam are putting some 15- to 20-inch walleye in the boat, as well as a lot of smallmouth bass. Crank baits work for both species.
The Pend Oreille River is a very good smallmouth destination now. It also has a huge population of perch, but they tend to be small. Look for rocks when targeting smallmouth and grassy bottoms if fishing for perch.
Other species
Although sturgeon fishing in the Snake River’s Hells Canyon is catch-and-release only, the thrill of battling a prehistoric fish that weighs more than you do, is worth the price of a charter. Right now, fishing is good.
The catfish bite is fair to good in the Snake River out of Lyons Ferry Marina. Most fish run 4 to 8 pounds and are taking cut bait or nightcrawlers. Some channel cats weighing in the teens have come out of the Palouse River this month, but they now seem to be running mostly around 5 pounds.
Shad fishing activity near Bonneville Dam remains in the very early stages as anglers begin to line the banks while waiting for the main run to materialize. Current reporting indicates that total passage numbers for shad at the dam are still quite low for this time of year, but the seasonal arrival of shad typically peaks throughout the month of June. As of Tuesday, 79,187 fish had been recorded.
Hunting
The Washington spring turkey season ends on Sunday. Hunters who harvested their full bag limit during the spring may still participate in fall turkey seasons, because each season has a separate bag limit. Your spring harvest does not count against your fall allocation. The fall season begins September 1 and runs through December.
Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com.