Sprague Lake rehabilitation

[jmay]

I don't chase Walleye but if you do they won't be in Sprague.

WDFW is proposing to restock Sprague Lake to offer a sustainable warmwater fishery, with some trout fishing opportunity. If the lake is treated this fall, it would be re-stocked next spring with crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass, channel catfish, rainbow trout and possibly sterile tiger muskies. No walleye or smallmouth bass would be re-stocked.

The proposed treatment would restore the balance of game fish in the lake, which now has an excess number of predator species. Walleye, which prey heavily on other fish, make up 55 percent of the fish in the lake, according to a 2003 WDFW assessment. Other species include non-game carp and tench (30 percent); channel catfish and brown bullhead (6.4 percent); crappie, bluegill and perch (6.1 percent); bass (2.5 percent); and rainbow trout (1 percent).

The growing imbalance of predator fish has contributed to a decline in sport fishing. Due to predation, survival rates in trout stocked in Sprague Lake have been extremely low. Angler effort has declined: As of last year, the number of angler days on Sprague Lake was just 15 percent of the number recorded in 1987, two years after the lake was last treated with rotenone and restocked. Catch rates also have dropped: A 2006 creel survey conducted by WDFW over 10 months found catches averaging just 0.24 fish per hour, compared to a long-term average of at least one fish per hour. Despite the abundance of walleye in the fishery, anglers harvested only 3.5 percent of the number available.

[Mossy]

just let the lake be....

[littleriver]

good post jmay...


and you used the key words "number of angler days"...

I like fishing for and eating walleye, but ultimately the best management option for any lake is
the one that generates the highest "number of angler days" on an annual basis.....


I'm afraid that it's going to be impossible to keep the lake walleye free after the rotenoning though..

too many bucket biologists in this state for that to happen.....


In fact the current population of walleye is traced to illegal introduction into Roosevelt lake prior to WWII.....


Smallmouth bass were brought over from the east coast legally and first stocked in the snake river when the railroad line was completed in the mid/late 1800's.....


In Ancient Greece olive trees were held in highest esteem and the penalty for cutting one down was death...... we may want to consider similar punishment for anyone caught introducing a fish species into any lake illegally or using live bait.........
the lakes and waterways we fish in need to be held in that kind of esteem.....




but back to Sprague Lake..

if the "rebirth" of sprague results in a quality largemouth bass fishery it might be worth it...... there are lots of places to
fish for walleye in eastern washington.. they don't have to be in every lake....

[Basshunter046]

Can I throw in my 2 cents? Well Sprague has got to be one of the most interesting lakes that I have ever fished. I've probibly put in 8 days into this lake and all that me and my 2 boys caught have been 1 perch (13 inches) 1 crappie (13 and a half inches) 1 carp (huge,, fun to reel in woohoo) and 5 sculpins (don't laugh). This lake looks just wonderful for a Bass fishery and have chased them here to no avail.
This past spring Me and my younger boy gave it a shot again ( that's when he caugh both the perch and crappie). We went the strickly for walleye and nothing else. Not one Walleye. The lake also had some Walleye guys from the Northwest Walleye Web site and they all got skunked too. hummmm?
I have here at my desk here at work, looking at the results of the 2005 netting on all the walleye fisheries in eastern washington. Sprague Species Compostion shows 38% Carp, 28% Walleye, 22% Crappie, 8% perch, 2% trout, and 2% other. Again hummmm? Now while there this spring of all (most) the fish I seen caught were guess,,, Channel Cats.
Now I know that Walleye can be very very finickly. And also while running up and down the lake there were times when my graph was just arches everywhere. I just couldn't believe we couldn't get something. Well nobody did. Something was there cause other boats graphed fish like me with nothing to show for it. I could see if I didn't get nothing but nobody got anything. Very Strange
Ok my assumption. With all the Carp in the lake no wonder there are no Bass and panfish or very little. With them things rippin up and down the shoreline through the spawning time there is no wonder there's not many. To me the lake is to shallow for a good trout lake, in mid summer way to warm. And as for Walleye I don't understand how so many people were there fishing for them and none caught. For the (suppossedly abundance) somebody should have caught at least one. Hummmmmm I don't understand.
Anyway hopefully the Fish and Game are planning to put unlimited bag limits for the fishing public to at least catch some of the fish out of the lake. Just my 2 cents worth

[Smalma]

Given the catch rates you and others have reported recently does it really make any difference whether the bag limits are removed or not?

I expect that if the rehab is approved the bag limits will be suspended.

Tight lines
Curt

[hewesfisher]

Sprague is an interesting lake, with a strange fishery. I honestly don't beleive that rehabbing the lake will improve things much. There is no public access to speak of, the only public launch is crude at best and there is no camping except for the two private resorts. If WDFW wants to improve the fishery, they need to improve access as well. It does no good to provide a quality fishery if boaters are the only ones to enjoy it.

I have mixed opinions with regard to stocking efforts. For years I've heard the lake is full of walleye, but I've only caught one (a 4lbr at that) and couldn't duplicate the catch no matter how I tried. I've mostly given up on Sprague, but still go since it is close and we get lucky every now and then. The lake is too shallow for any respectable trout IMO, except maybe in cold weather months, I sure wouldn't keep any during warm weather.

Sprague has the potential to be a quality fishery, I just hope WDFW gets things right and the bucket biologists stay home.

[Marc Martyn]

Here is some information that I found on Rotenone:
A Pesticide Information Project of Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Oregon State University, the University of Idaho, and the University of California at Davis and the Institute for Environmental Toxicology, Michigan State University. Major support and funding was provided by the USDA/Extension Service/National Agricultural Pesticide Impact Assessment Program.

Ecological Effects:

Effects on aquatic organisms: Since rotenone is used as a fish toxin (piscicide), it follows that it is very highly toxic to fish. Reported 96-hour LC50s were 0.031 mg/L in rainbow trout, 0.0026 mg/L in channel catfish, and 0.023 mg/L in bluegill for the 44% pure formulation [50]. Aquatic invertebrates have a wide range of sensitivity to rotenone with 48-hour EC50 values ranging from 0.002 to 100 mg/L [50]. The compound is not expected to accumulate appreciably in aquatic organisms. The bioconcentration factor for rotenone in the sunfish is 181 times the ambient water concentration. In addition the highly toxic nature of this substance to aquatic organisms means that there is little survival of the organisms that accumulate the compound.
Effects on other organisms: The compound is nontoxic to bees. However, it is toxic to bees when used in combination with pyrethrum [12].

In my opinion, using Rotenone upsets the food chain of all fish, at least temporarily. Several years back they killed of Fish Lake near Cheney. Prior to the "rehab", the insect hatches in the evening was something to be believed. After the treatment, the following years insect activity dropped dramatically. The lake hasn't been the same since the rehab.

[littleriver]

Though I've never fished sprague lake I have researched it quite a bit and here's my opinion.....

Sprague is a very shallow lake exposed to frequent strong winds.... This is very similar to a larger lake (Oneida.. near Syracuse) I used to fish when I lived in NY state. ...

Oneida is a great smallmouth/walleye fishery but there's a catch...... Rich, shallow lake water can become very oxygen depleted during the summer but if there are frequent strong winds these winds tend to drive oxygen into the water and create currents that favor predators over the forage fish.... Once predator populations increase above a certain point calm days can be very stressful.. high fish populations mean high oxygen consumption and lower oxygen levels in the water cause the walleye and smallmouths to go into extreme "negative" mood until the wind starts blowing......

now most fishermen tend to like to fish "calm" days because windy days are uncomfortable and, to some, downright dangerous...

I used to fish Onieda from a small canoe (so "calm" was a must.. windy days were out of the question) but was able to catch fish because I understood the walleye and bass I was after were in an extremely negative mood. I would use my depthfinder and lake charts to get over likely holding spots and work until I found schools.. You could tell when you found a school because you would keep getting these short "nibble" strikes.. sometimes 2 or 3 per cast... once you started to feel the tapping then you work the area slowly and carefully with the smallest jig and a little bit of worm on the end........ fishing wasn't fast and furious but I could always come back with 2 or 3 when everyone else got skunked....... sometimes you just had to let the jig set stil for a few minutes and set the hook hard at the slightest nudge....




there was a guy from spokane who used to fish Sprague a lot and had a web page totally devoted to fishing this lake.. not sure if it's still up or not but one of the things he used to note over and over was that walleye fishing is best there on windy days........



anyways, like I said.. I've never fished the lake so I'm not an expert on that water, but from what I've read about it and from my experiences on other lakes this may be a plausable explanation....

[Marc Martyn]

Interesting.....my best day on Amber (40-50 fish day) was riding white caps in my pontoon boat. It was constant all day long and extremely tiring.

[Smalma]

Marc-
Food chains sometimes are pretty complicated. As you suggest I have seen some surprising changes following a rehab of a lake. Remember that most often a lake is not treated unless there are problems with the lake's fish populations - too many stunted fish, too many predators, wrong species etc. Following the treatment is not uncommon to see forage organism numbers to increase dramatically. Removing the pressure from the predation on the food chain following treatment more often than not dramatic increases in the food chain occur. Those increases can vary from the zoo-plankton to the scuplins to crawdads. In short positive changes to the food chain.

Littleriver -
The physical situation at Sprague is much different than Onieda - Sprague's average depth is half of that of Onieda and it maximum depth is also less than half.

Tight lines
Curt

[littleriver]

average depth of oneida is deceptive because the southeastern portion is very deep... most of the rest of the lake is 15 to 20 feet as I recall....... in the same light using an average depth for Lake Erie is not useful because the western 2/3rds is about 20 or 30 feet while the eastern 1/3rd gets down to over 200 feet....

in large lakes like that with vastly varying habitat environments localized aquatic food chains tend to form and they will be quite different from each other... there might be some migration (i.e. the big momma walleye in western lake erie migrate during the warm summer months to the deeper and cooler waters of the eastern lake) but for the most part they tend to act like they are separate entities.....

another interesting point about Oneida is that it has a very active guide service industry based on the lake's abundant walleye populations... it was reading some of the chit chat between the guides where I found out about the oxygen and the wind thing..one guide even had pictures of depth finder printouts showing what was below the boat on calm days and what was below the boat on windy days... on calm days the walleye would suspend 5 feet or so above the bottom and go dormant.. on windy days the walleye would be right on the bottom and very active...... these guys, for the most part, wouldn't even go out on calm days as I recall.......

The sprague lake explanation, as presented here in the initial post, is a bit odd because I don't think I've ever heard of a lake having too many large predator fish... The problem is more typically that the large predator fish are over harvested and this causes stunting in the prey fish like perch and bluegill........

Like I said earlier, I'm just hypothecating, but it still seems plausible to me that one of the problems might be that the large walleye population in Sprague is feeding heavily on windy days when the fishing boats don't go out and going dormant on the calm days when everyone is on the water............

would be interesting to get out there in a big strong boat and on a very windy day and drag some crankbaits around to test my theory......


but the bottom line on all this stuff is that I think we need to stand back and let the WDFW biologists do what they think is best... I don't think they are any smarter than we are but they have all the data and the responsibility to max out opportunity for everyone.... It fun to sit back and hypothecate these kinds of issues and decisions and I'm sure they screw up every once in a while, but most of the things I've watched them closely on have worked out to the better as compared to what I would have done.....