Northwest Fishing Reports

This trout plant at Lake Ki, is the worst plant Ive seen in over 10 years+.
Most of the fish are 4 or 4.4 to a pound. Were talking fingerlings, thats what they should be called. If they are going to plant fish this small, why not plant fingerlings in the fall, so they have some time to grow, and cost less, plus you can plant more. You dont see many coromoants in fall. They do this on the east side of the mountians. If they did this I bet the fish would be just as big as the fish they are planting or bigger. And then they can plant more. There ideal of a big fish in Lake Ki was 1,000 lbs of 2 to a pound. Last year there were 14,000 lbs of these fish planted in the lake, what up!

Contact your local bio with your thoughts. Feedback is always good!

stace

Planting the fish in the fall will not help. Those fish will struggle to survive through the winter and they also don't bulk up fatty food's like what they are fed in the hatchery. Overwintering is hard on fish, and finding food can be especially difficult in winter.

I believe something had gone wrong at one of the hatcheries this year resulting in these smaller 4 fish per pound fish.

It's time to branch out to other lakes. Your'e in Everett, You've got lake Stevens with some large rainbows, and tastey Kokanee.

In recent decades it is pretty common for westside lakes with any numbers of trout in them to be hit pretty hard by cormorants in the late fall (October/November) and/or early spring.

Prior to the early 1980s fall plants of trout at say 20/# did pretty well on a number of lakes on the westside lakes. Of course that was pre-cormorants. Keep in mind that most of the eastside trout lakes are ice covered for much of the year. In addition many of the east side cormorants migrate to the west side to over winter - a major wintering was Port Susan (I don't track them anymore). In addition there is substantial local breeding colony at the mouth of Snohomish. Both of which are pretty darn close to the 7-lakes area.

Tight lines
Curt

I know your pain. I saw where Langlois only got 1900, and nowhere on the list was Margaret. Langlois used to get twice that. Hey Matt, you're in the loop, is this the fallout from the hatchery funding issues or do they really think Rattlesnake(catch and release) needs 10,000 fish?

Despite the dismal forecast we had a very nice day at Ki. Per normal plan we trolled hardware for the first few hours, C&R as many as possible. I had one hold over to the boat that was too big for the net, laid right across the 19" opening and there was no way it was going in. Knocked that beautiful rose stripe right off the line.... Huge disappointment but I guess its all part of the opener.
As we were putting the boat in, there were the old (er) guys sitting on the bank sipping a few while high grading bait caught fish. I gently enlightened them on the regs. I was met with a rather sour disposition. Next came the biologist and he was met with the same. Then came the enforcement officer who gave them a little something extra to take home.
All in all a very nice day! Putted around the lake, well more like buzzed with the electric troller. Drank way too much coffee and ate a bunch of cookies. Chatted with everyone and brought home a few pan friers for mom and the shut in neighbors. Yep pretty darn nice day!

is high grading releasing all of the smaller trout in the effort to catch larger trout as part of the limit?

returnofthefish wrote:is high grading releasing all of the smaller trout in the effort to catch larger trout as part of the limit?

That would be it! As you know anything caught with bait goes towards the limit. So tossing back the little guys swimming belly up is High Grading.

Bodofish wrote:

returnofthefish wrote:is high grading releasing all of the smaller trout in the effort to catch larger trout as part of the limit?

That would be it! As you know anything caught with bait goes towards the limit. So tossing back the little guys swimming belly up is High Grading.

And I hate that act of 'fishing' with a passion.