Bass Explosion on Pend Oreille

Prior to the last three or four years, Lake Pend Oreille saw little in the way of smallmouth bass fishing. We've had largemouth in the system for years. We fished for them primarily in the spring throwing skirted jigs and spinners into murky sloughs. We'd catch a few. Now and then one of us would get into the right place at the right time and woowee--twenty or thirty fish later, we'd have a story to tell.

But you never heard of smallmouth in this fishery back then--until around the turn of the century. North Idaho experienced an unreasonable snow melt assisted by heavy rains in the spring of '97 (~March 20) and the Army Corp had already begun to bring the lake up to level when the torrents came down off the mountains. The dams couldn't quite handle the load. Though they held, we had flood conditions. In the process, smallmouth bass were washed down into the Pend Oreille.

By 2000, 2001 and 2, a few fishermen began catching them. Others who knew what they were doing came from elsewhere and rumor spread quickly that Lake Pend Oreille was about to explode with a new fishery. They were right. Smallmouth, prone to structure, have taken over the riprap shorelines and rocky areas of this massive lake body. With an ample supply of perch, crappie, peno, pike minnow and other minnow species, small mouth lacked nothing in the way of food. Now we're catching fish quite frequently in the 6-pound class, with a few larger and stories are circulating of smallmouth bass getting off that could weigh in the 7 to 9-pound range.

Anyone who wants to test the explosion theory has only to throw a tube worm and fish it properly around a piling or rock structure, especially in late May and on through June into July. Even fly fishermen are trading their trout dreams for small mouth. Think about it. I've caught several good fish already off the shores of Downtown Sandpoint! It takes very little time to be on the lake, boat or no boat, and catch good fish after work or in the early morning before the clock starts. On the right days, you can do this even during lunch hours.

Growing up here I never imagined Lake Pend Oreille, noted for its historic Kamloops, Kokanee and Bull Trout fisheries, would ever become famous as a spiney ray lake.

But it is.

###Dwayne K. Parsons