Friday, June 22, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
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
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 7:05 PM 3 comments
Men at Work
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 8:14 AM 0 comments
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Relationships
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 11:22 AM 0 comments
Friday, June 8, 2007
Far From Dead
Many of the folks who've fished Lake Pend Oreille in the last year or so complain that the fishery that once was here is no longer, that the notoriously big Gerrard rainbows are gone. They are certainly less common, but fishing with Ward Tollbom and his daughter Delci, we had at least three pass directly beneath our fish finder between 30 feet and 60 feet down. That's rainbow depth. The reasons for the changes in fishable species in this lake are many, but the fact is the primary food fish, Kokanee, has too many effective predators seeking its nutrious flesh.
But I would like to say that I think this lake is far from dead. It's just changing, like the demographics of California and Vancouver, British Columbia. Change in populations is inevitable in some ways. If you are as old as I am (gray-haired will do) and grew up in North Idaho, you would never have believed that wild turkeys would roam these woods and fields in such great abundance as they do now--and in all my high school days of hunting for whitetail deer in the fall I never once saw a moose track, and elk were scarce where they are now abundant. North Idaho has changed.
The state record Kamloops was caught in 1947, just a couple of months before I was born. I didn't get here in time to enjoy the kind of fishery this lake provided then. Kokanee (land-locked sockeye salmon) that generally ran an average of 11 and 12 inches swam Lake Pend Oreille in the millions and those huge longer-living Gerrard rainbows locally called Kamloops fed on them.
We still have Kokanee in this lake system but they are in danger of collapsing. They've been recognized as in the danger zone for more than fifteen years. A similar abundant fishery of kokanee disappeared from Priest Lake where I caught them by the bucket full when I was a boy. The lakes change, sometimes not for the better.
But let's look at Lake Pend Oreille. No one can deny its changing, but it is certainly not dead. Mackinaw (deep dwelling, voracious Lake Trout) , like the one shown here, are still swimming in relative abundance. We saw many blimps on the bottom flat where we jigged water 110 to 130 feet deep. Those were mackinaw. Despite efforts to gill net them out of abundance, they are still there and will be. The lake is too big to catch them all, providing too many places where they can reside.
Of the five lake trout taken in Ward's boat that early June morning, two had 8 and 9 kokanee respectively in their stomachs, as seen in this photo. The point I'm making is that the lake is not dead; it is just changing. To catch large fish frequently, you've got to change with it.
### Dwayne K. Parsons
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 9:03 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
A Log That Moved
Todd and I had decided to fish the McKinnon Flats, a wildlife refuge on the Bow River, southeast of Calgary just past where the Sheep River meets the Bow River. It was quite chilly that Saturday, the last day in March. A cold spring wind blew in off the distant Rockies from the northwest. Clouds covered us most of the morning, but we had a welcome break of blue with direct sun for about 25 minutes.
By then we'd each taken a trout or two when suddenly Todd hooked up on what he thought was a bottom snag. He pumped the rod and tried to break free. But it began to pump back. He had on a large fish of some sort--that was evident--but it was strange as it didn't fight at all like a Bow River Brown or Rainbow.
Fact was, it hardly fought at all. Total time to net couldn't have been more than two minutes. I figured it might have been because of the cold water conditions. Had he hooked this big baby in June or July, we'd have seen a more voracious tussle, I'm sure. But hey! It makes for a nice picture!
Todd was fishing a Brown Trout Rapala Countdown casting long and fishing deep. Landing this massive Pike was a rare experience for both of us. So far it's the largest Pike the landing of which I've been part of on the Bow River. You can catch bigger Pike north of Calgary and some south near the border, but one this size is a rare catch on the Bow. We know they're here, but it's not often you see one this size.
Todd caught one more trout after that, until three other fishermen invaded our spot. I had taken 3 smaller Rainbows fishing pretty much the same way and landed one monster Brown, but when these other fishermen came in, we left.
I have to put in a note here on river etiquette. When a river is long and full of fish and has few fishermen on it, there's no excuse to come in on top of other fishermen. I find it hard to understand why they couldn't fish somewhere else. I try to show courtesy to other fishermen whenever possible. Good river etiquette is important. The Bow gets crowded sometimes especially in August and September when so many people are on vacation. When it's like that sometimes you just can't help floating over someone else's spot; but to come right in on other fishermen when there's plenty of open water is a discourtesy. I found myself irritated with these guys because they simply had no regard for us. Had they shown some courtesy my attitude toward them might have been different.
At any rate, I left happy with the fishing, which on the Bow is almost always great.
###Mike Robertson
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 3:36 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
River Dreams
Posted by Dwayne K. Parsons at 2:42 PM 0 comments