Northwest Fishing Reports

I have noticed quite a few reports lately that say Trout are being caught and released while using bait/scent. If you look at page 17 under fresh water rules for lakes in the regulations under trout it says that any fish caught with bait/scent counts toward you daily limit whether released or not. Look at page 10 under definitions and you will see that bait and scent are the same thing. I have come home many times when fishing for Kokanee with out the last fish because I caught a small Trout and released it. Yes it would be hard to enforce in less WDFG was watching you the whole time you were fishing but that is not the reason I come home short the 5th Kokanee it is because it is the rules.

OK off my soap box for now. Tight lines to you all.

Thanks for the refresh on this fishingbear. I'll point out that this also applies to scented artificial baits such as Gulp and Powerbait products. I see people in selective gear waters fishing with gulp minnows or powerbait and their reasoning is "their artificial." It's getting harder to find soft artificial baits without scent but they are out there.

Yep, if whatever you use (artificial or not) has bait scent applied or impregnated it falls under bait when fishing for trout.

If kokanee are included in the trout limit for a particular body of water, all trout caught with bait count toward the limit. There are lakes where kokanee are NOT included in the trout limit (Roosevelt for one), so catching a trout while fishing for kokanee doesn't count against the kokanee limit. Always check special rules for any body of water you fish.

Thanks for the heads up.

It really is frustrating how the rules are made so complex as to needing a minor degree in law to follow. It's as if the NFL rule book is different for each stadium, and also different for each part of the field for each one of the stadiums, varied perhaps by the month the game is played. How is an average person supposed to learn and remember all of this? This is supposed to be a recreational hobby. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for conservation and fishery management but this is simply madness.

wlai wrote:Thanks for the heads up.

It really is frustrating how the rules are made so complex as to needing a minor degree in law to follow. It's as if the NFL rule book is different for each stadium, and also different for each part of the field for each one of the stadiums, varied perhaps by the month the game is played. How is an average person supposed to learn and remember all of this? This is supposed to be a recreational hobby. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for conservation and fishery management but this is simply madness.

It can be a little confusing. I was running 2 lines this past weekend, 1 with bait and one without, and my first fish was a bass, I was fishing for trout. I released the bass, but couldn't remember if that was a seperate limit or not, or even if bass had a limit because I don't bass fish. Since i couldn't remember at the time I just counted it towards my limit. Then I had to keep track in my head what I caught on the unbaited/scented line, and what came from the baited line. Its not that bad, just takes a little quick head math, but the rules can be written in such that they can be sometimes hard to understand at first glance.

The real fun one is when you are fishing a marine area and cross into another, and they have different rules.

They publish the regs both on line and hard copy, so you can always refer back to the book if in doubt. Keeping up with all the emergency rules in season is a bit harder, but if you subscribe to the wdfw email notifications, they push all the emergency rule changes to you in email.

JoshH - In freshwater, the bait rule applies to TROUT only, not bass, panfish, etc.

wlai wrote:The real fun one is when you are fishing a marine area and cross into another, and they have different rules.

I think the real fun is when you are fishing legally on some body of water, but the guy next to you adamantly tells you you're breaking the rules in some way (gear, catch limit, target species, wild/hatchery…etc.). No doubt the regs can be confusing, but don't always rely on your fellow anglers to know exactly what they're talking about.