Walsh Lake?

[nutjobrob]

Hey guys,
New guy, love the forum, very helpful.
So, I've been eyeballing Walsh Lake as a float-tube lake and can't find ANYTHING on it. Thought there might be some cutties in there. It's SW of Rattlesnake Lake and looks like you can drive in through Hobart.
Anyone know anything?
Thanks
Rob

[Aaron]

I've added Walsh Lake to our database in case you manage to go fishing there and want to post a report about it.

[nutjobrob]

I've added Walsh Lake to our database in case you manage to go fishing there and want to post a report about it.

Thanks, Aaron. May drive by it on my way to Rattlesnake next week.

[Aaron]

Try and take some photos if you can, even if you don't go fishing. We can add them to our lake information page.

[Jake Dogfish]

I think its private. Let us know if you find anything out!

[nutjobrob]

Yup, private. Drove out on my way to Rattlesnake Thursday to check it out and ran out of public road.

[TheKingOfTrout]

Hi y'all, for people curious about this lake, like I was too I looked into some reports on the lake. Super interesting history, there is 11 different documented species of fish in the lake that include a population Kokanee. "Surveyors never located more than 20 kokanee redds in any given year from 1997 to 2001" (Seattle.gov, 2005) Then in 2002 it looked like the population of Kokanee grew. "SPU staff collected DNA samples from 87 fish during the 2002 spawning season" (Seattle.gov, 2005) Basically the population has grown, and researchers can't pinpoint the origin of the Kokanee. These fish are like relics similar to the Bull Trout and Pygmy Whitefish found in Chester Morse Lake. "Bull trout and pygmy whitefish populations in Chester Morse Lake have thus been separated from other populations for at least 13,000 years, and represent unique genetic stocks of these species" (Wikipedia.org, 2017) Chester Morse Lake was formed 14,000 years ago. In relation to Walsh lake these landlocked sockeye salmon could share a similar history to the Bull Trout and Pygmy Whitefish found in Chester Morse Lake. In my opinion I think somethings are better just left alone, I think Walsh lake is one of those. We enjoy the outdoors, but we also have a job to preserve it and this lake has a small fragile population of fish that we should protect by not bothering it.


References:

Rattlesnake Lake. (2018). En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 23 May 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rattlesnake_Lake

(2018). Seattle.gov. Retrieved 23 May 2018, from https://www.seattle.gov/Util/cs/groups/ ... 003227.pdf

[The Quadfather]

@Kingofthetrout, Well said sir!
That was a good read. (The elusive and rarely caught on camera...’Pygmy whitefish ‘