Mackinaw, Walleye, and Sturgeon in Lake Washington?

[Palmer]

My Uncle saw an enormous sturgeon in the lake in the 70's but are there many in the Lake?
Has anyone caught a mackinaw? I found a recent description of the lake and it lists mackinaw as a species in the lake.

[Easy Limits]

I haven't heard of any Macks being caught out of the lake but there was a walleye caught a couple of years ago. And, yes, an occasional monster sturgeon washes up on the shore.

[gpc]

I haven't heard of any Macks being caught out of the lake but there was a walleye caught a couple of years ago. And, yes, an occasional monster sturgeon washes up on the shore.

Do you know how many walleye are in the lake. I love walleye and live only 5 miles from lake WA. Im tired of driving 150+ miles to gat some walleye

[A9]

They say there is some spots that are "Possible Lake trout territory"
None that I know that have been caught...
Sturgeon do wash up on occasion, never caught, and not very many walleye are in the lake...A couple here and there get caught by like the UW research team and by sportfishers...

gpc.
Not worth going out for them....

[Palmer]

I haven't heard of any Macks being caught out of the lake but there was a walleye caught a couple of years ago. And, yes, an occasional monster sturgeon washes up on the shore.

Do you know how many walleye are in the lake. I love walleye and live only 5 miles from lake WA. Im tired of driving 150+ miles to gat some walleye

I read up on walleye and I learned that they proliferate fast and will actually swim up drainage and irrigation ditches to new bodies of water. So in about 5 years you may be catching them in places like Lake Sammamish and Phantom Lake. There is a picture of one on the Lake Washington reports.

[gpc]

I haven't heard of any Macks being caught out of the lake but there was a walleye caught a couple of years ago. And, yes, an occasional monster sturgeon washes up on the shore.

Do you know how many walleye are in the lake. I love walleye and live only 5 miles from lake WA. Im tired of driving 150+ miles to gat some walleye

I read up on walleye and I learned that they proliferate fast and will actually swim up drainage and irrigation ditches to new bodies of water. So in about 5 years you may be catching them in places like Lake Sammamish and Phantom Lake. There is a picture of one on the Lake Washington reports.

Thanks cant wait

[Palmer]

There has been a couple studies on Lake Trout in Lake Washington. I don't know if there was contemplation over stocking the lake or if they were actually introduced. The article doesn't give alot of info.

45. Beauchamp, D. A. 1982. Lake trout (Salvinelinus namaycush) - feasibility of introduction into Lake Washington.
WA Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, University of Washington. Seattle. (unpublished) Location: UW SOF/
THS
FISH, L. WASHINGTON, STOCKING
The biological benefits from introducing lake trout in Lake Washington are addressed by comparing the life
history characteristics and requirements of lake trout with the habitat present in Lake Washington.

from: http://www.fish.washington.edu/research ... s/9407.pdf

[Palmer]

I've been fishin' several times this past spring along the bottom in 70 - 150' of water. I'm really surprised at all the signals on the bottom - south of 520 in 120' of water and west of St Edwards in about 100'. Some were even stacked up. I had one strike in 70' of water that got my partner all excited. It took off and made the reel sing. It may have been a King but we lost him within a minute.

[Palmer]

Has anyone caught any walleye recently?

[A9]

I've not heard of anything.

[littleriver]

In regard to walleye in Lake Washington I would pass on the following from very official sources at the WDFW.

According to this source, there are no walleye in western washington other than in the Columbia River.

In their view Walleye are an aggressive predator of other more desireable species.


In my view of things, the yellow perch and the walleye are pretty much the same fish but in different sizes and there are lots of perch in lake washington.


Take this information any way you want to take it. All I'm saying it's that's the story i got from management.

[A9]

I thought there were Walleye in Banks and Potholes???

[littleriver]

Sam. There are. Banks and potholes are in Eastern Washington.

Official WDFW position is that they stay there and not be allowed to migrate over to the west side
of the mountains save what moves down into the lower columbia.


It was 4 or 5 years back but the last name of the biologist who passed me that informatioin
is "Jackson" or something like that.


Now personally, I tend to favor introduction of walleye into westside lakes but I also have a great deal of respect for the job that our WDFW biologists do. There may be some factors working here that I don't understand so i tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But I still think it's a good idea to be constantly questioning and discussing management issues with WDFW. I just don't think it's a good idea to take things into your own hands and become a "bucket biologist".....

[A9]

Oops my bad I misread it. I thought it said there are no walleye in Washington other then the Columbia River...

I've been rewriting a 6 page essay for the past few hours so my eyes are pretty sore from all the reading...

[Joe Heater]

The alternative is to wait around while the state deceides to kill off all the lakes that have Walleye to save their hippy trout. I don't condone any such acticity, but if I was jigging for Perch in a Western Washington Lake and caught a Walleye, I wouldn't go reporting it to the authorities.

Mean ole Marble Eyes. But one taste of their fillets and a lot of people wouldn't ever look at trout the same way.

Good joe

[Smalma]

5 or so years ago a research net (U of W?) placed in Lake Washington caught a walleye. In addition there have occassional angler reports of walleye's being caught (though most turn out to be large perch or pikeminnow). The bottom line is that there are some walleye in the big pond though I would not characterize them as a fishable population at this time.

Lake Trout were apparently introduced in the lake Washington (and other large waters) more than 100 years ago. As late as the mid-1960s an odd laker was caugth in Lake Sammamish. Have not heard of any since that time.

White sturgeon are know to use Lake Washington. Those fish are not produced in the lake but rather fish that have migrated from either the Columbia or Fraser Rivers enter the lake (just like most Puget Sound rivers) looking for feeding opportunities. On the whole the number in the lake at anyone time would appear to be limited

Tight lines
Curt

[Derrick-k]

The other day I was down at the dock at the cedar river and a man told me he had caught a sturgun the day befor about a foot he said C&R.

[A9]

Most likely a pikeminnow???

[Derrick-k]

I don't know he looked like he knew what he was doing, he said he fished there alot but he might have mistook a squaw for a Sturgeon.

[Smalma]

Juvenile sturgeon like many anadromous fish have to achieve a minimum size before they can successfully survive in salt water. For them it is typically around 30 inches. Without any sturgeon natural reproduction occurring in Puget Sound waters there isn't anyway for a small sturgeon (say less than 2 feet long) to naturally get to Lake Washington. The reported small sturgeon would almost surely have been a mis-identified fish or an illegal released fish.

Tight lines
Curt