Northwest Fishing Reports

NORTHWEST WARM WATER FOUNDATION
FISHING FOR THE FUTURE
A foundation established to enhance warm water fisheries across the Pacific Northwest

Our Objective:

To clearly show that our foundation, together with public support, will demonstrate to the Department of Fish and Wildlife that warm water fisheries can support fundamental and fulfilling sport fishing for all age groups.
Our objectives, keeping the public informed, and our dedicated membership, will ensure that our foundation can inspire and produce a well rounded fishing environment for everyone.

Mission Statement:

To promote and enhance existing warm water fisheries across the Pacific Northwest.
The focus is to ensure warm water angling opportunities for the present as well as the future.

Implementation:

A. To build a working relationship with the Department of Fish & Wildlife and other user groups in the Northwest.

B. Create a membership strong enough to influence the decision making process at a state level.

C. To provide the public with information concerning proposed and current management plans for warm water fisheries of the Northwest.

D. To support hatchery stocking programs, monetarily and through volunteer labor.

E. Create a network of warm water fishing user groups to provide a united front on all warm water issues
(ie Walleye, Bass, Panfish, Catfish).

F. Increase public awareness of the benefits of healthy warm water fisheries.
To support warm water fishing programs for all user groups.

If you would like more information about this foundation send me a PM and lets get in touch.

Thank you for your time.

Yellow Bear,

Is this a new start up or have they been around for awhile?

Do they have a website?

Is it local or are there chapters throughout the Northwest?

cavdad45,

This is a brand new outfit.
We just got all the paper work done.

As for the web site, we are in the process of putting one together at this time.

We are hoping to get chapters all across the Pacific Northwest.

If you have any other questions, I will be more than happy to answer them for you.
Thanks for the interest.

I got a report that Sprague had been killed off and I wanted to check it out.
I drove down there yesterday to find out that the report was wrong.
Sprague will be done Monday but that the kill boats were down at Cow and Hallin as we spoke.
Since I had not been down to Cow lake in many years I went on down to check it out.
Lets all hope that what I saw at Cow and Hallin is not what I am going to see at Sprague.
75% of the dead and dying fish that I saw were game fish.
Most were Perch but I also saw Bluegill, Crappie, Largemouth, Catfish and one Walleye.
Also the number of Pickerel surprised me.
The water was a chilly 48 degrees and I was told that the temp will affect the speed of which the Rotenone will work. I did hang around for a few hours and I did see more Carp show up before I left but I also found more game fish.

This organization sound great. Just let me know how I can help out.

WCCT,
The best way to help is to join up.
If you would PM me your address I will send you a application.

Thanks for your interest.

Yellowbear-----
Northwest warm water foundation.
This sounds great, I've been
waiting for this for five years, I
cant wait to become a part of it.

Hello crappie007.
If you would PM me your address I will be more than happy to send you a application

The little wife and I made another trip down to Cow and Hallin lakes yesterday.
She had never seen a lake killed off before and wanted to check it out.
At Hallin we did see more Carp, Tench and Catfish than I had on Friday.
For those of you that have never been to Hallin, its more of a mud puddle than a lake.
Very small and shallow.
At Cow the wind was blowing hard into the North shore and had pushed a lot of fish into the bays which made for good viewing. Crappies and Perch seem to be the most abundant. The size of the fish is whats interesting. Most of them are 2 to 4 inches We have not seen a Crappie big enough to be a keeper.
The Perch are the same, 2 to 4 inches and there are thousands of them.
The biggest Perch was 12 inches.
There are a lot of Carp but nothing over 10 lbs to speak of.
The biggest Tench was around 2 lbs but most are 4 to 8 inches.
As for the Catfish we have not found one that is more than 10 inches.
Again we found a large number of Pickerel.
With as little fishing pressure as Cow lake gets I expected to see a large number of predator species.
We counted every Walleye that we saw and tallied up a grand total of 30. There sizes ranged from 10 inches to 24.
The fish seemed to have been feeding very well.
I also found one Largemouth that was a honest 2 lbs, that has been the biggest largemouth so far.
We did see some fish that were, as of yesterday still dying, Catfish and Carp.


It seems funny to me that a body of water that has so much feed in it, has so few predators.

I heard that the WDFW was going into Lake Sprague at night and shocking it and taking the game fish and moving them to another lake. Naturally they are not going to save them all, but I was wondering if you saw this first hand. I guess it was in one of their news releases. Would love to know where they put those Walleyes.

Good fishing.

Joe

Hey Joe, I read in the Spokesman Review that they did shock a few Walleye (stated 27) and dumped them into Liberty Lake. It was in the Sunday Outdoor section about 3 weeks ago. As for being true????????? If so at least a few were saved.

I have not seen any attempts of this but I was told that they tried to save some of the big Cats.
I was also told that they were keeping them in a pen and that someone was stealing them.
If the WDFW did get 27 Walleyes to put in Liberty, maybe they should have asked the public to help out.
I am sure we could have saved more.

Could not agree more. If they would have asked for the help I think they would have been stunned at the number of people that would have came out to help relocate the game fish.

Joe

I also agree they should have asked for help.
I live close to sprauge and would have been happy
to help save some of those fish.

They are doing some project at Banks Lake that deals with the health and condition of the fish in there. They are talking about it on northwestwalleye.com. However, the forum is currently down but should be back up soon. I get the feeling that the helping out part is only reserved for a few special people. Almost like a social club rather than an environmental project. Its wierd. Lots of people were asking how they could get involved.

Joe

HEY JOE,
YELLOWBEARS GROUP IS GOING TO BE A GREAT THING FOR WARMWATER SPECIES, BUT THERE ALREADY IS A NUMBER OF WARMWATER PROJECTS GOING ON IN OUR STATE FOR PEOPLE TO GET INVOLVED IN, AS WELL AS, DONATE TIME TO. THEY HAVE THE HABITAT BOXES AT POTHOLES, AND A SELECT FEW SPOTS IN EASTERN WASHINGTON FISH AND GAME HAVE A FEW PROJECTS FOR GROUPS OF PEOPLE LIKE CHURCH GROUPS, SCOUTS, SCHOOL GROUP, EITHER REBUILDING HABITAT IN LAKES AND RIVERS THRUOUT THE STATE OR JUST MANNING A POACHER PHONE LINE. I VOLUNTEER 80-PLUS HOURS A YEAR FOR THESE AND OTHER FISHERY PROJECTS. I USUALLY HEAR FROM MY COUSIN (WA. ST. FISH BIOLOGIST) WHERE AND WHEN THESE PROJECTS ARE RUNNING. IF YOU HEAR OF ANY, LET ME KNOW. I HAVE 2 YOUTH GROUPS THAT ARE ALWAYS LOOKING FOR PROJECTS LIKE THESE OUT OF THE TRI-CITIES.

Yellowbear, were you able to run down to Sprague and see what had floated up??????

Basshunter,
I plan to spend some time down there Friday.

As for the study being done up at Banks,
This is something they have been doing for the past 5 or 6 years now.
They have also been working on Potholes, Moses, and Sprague.

Yellowbear, sounds good. I heard it was on the Spokane News last night but I watched my sons' football game up at Ferris HS.

I just got back from Sprague and I am a bit confused.
As I pulled up to the Southwest launch area I found the gates locked and a red ribbon telling me to stay out.
I headed on down the road to the next launch and it was also blocked off so I headed into the Sprague lake Resort and found there gates were also closed. In other words NO! public access to the lake.

Why would they close Sprague off to the public and not Cow.

I did find a land owner that gave me permission to view the kill from his property.
There were a large number of big Carp but I did not see a single Walleye or any other predator for that matter.
I did see hundreds of baitfish. Crappie, Perch and Catfish. these fish were all around 2 to 4 inches.
There seemed to be a good bunch of feed compared to the number of predators.
As my access was limited I will have to make another trip next week.
The land owner told me that he had talked with one of the Biologists and he said that the Walleyes had stayed out in the middle of the lake and had gone down out there.

If the Walleyes floated up in Cow, I would think they would have done the same at Sprague.

I expected to see a few good sized Perch and Crappie but I did not.

Why am I not finding anything big enough to be a keeper?

I asked the gentleman if he had heard what they plan to put back in Sprague.
He told me that they had caught 70 big Channels that are going back in as well as Crappie, Cats, Bluegill, Largemouth, Trout, Tiger muskie's and White Sturgeon??????????
He said the Tigers were going to be introduced to keep the Largemouth in check.
It would seem to me that it would make more sense to wait and see if they indeed need to be kept in check.
If the Largemouth get caught out as fast as the Smallmouth did, they won't need a predator.