It won’t be official until the middle of April, but state Fish and Wildlife Department biologist Brett Barkdull is “relatively confident” that the proposal now on the table for a summer Baker Lake/Skagit River sockeye fishery will be accepted by all user groups.
“It could be tweaked a little between now (Tuesday) and April 16, but I think the general framework is the direction we’re going,” Barkdull, in La Conner, said.
The 16th is the end of the 2015 North of Falcon salmon season-setting process, when federal and state fishery managers and user groups announce final coastal and inland seasons and regulations.
Baker Lake recreational sockeye regs would be about the same as last year, Barkdull said, except four salmon would be allowed daily this summer, an increase of one fish over last year. The lake season would open July 10 and close Sept. 7; two rods would be legal with the proper license endorsement, and anglers would be allowed to fish until the boat limit is reached.
The season for the river fishery, from the Memorial Highway bridge in downtown Mount Vernon upstream to Gilligan Creek, would be increased significantly. It would open June 16 and run through July 15 — roughly four weeks instead of last year’s two, with a three-fish limit. The season on the Skagit in 2014 was June 14-29.
Last year’s Baker Lake fishery didn’t go well, with the perception among a lot of fishermen that not enough sockeye were allowed to enter the lake. Barkdull said WDFW has, hopefully, addressed that concern by capping the number of fish river anglers can harvest.
“The public concern was with ‘getting fish to the lake,’” he said, “so we would cap the recreational river fishery at 20 percent of the predicted run size. When that quota is reached, the river fishery would basically shut down, except for spawning escapement and tribal needs.”
Kid’s derby
Mark your calendar for what is probably the best-attended youth fishing derby in the county, the event on Lake Tye in Monroe, sponsored by the Sky Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited. It’s scheduled for Sunday, April 26, the day after the statewide trout opener.
New commissioners
The governor last week appointed fishing columnist Dave Graybill, in Leavenworth, and retired public health physician Kim Thorburn, in Spokane, to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission. The commission is a nine-member citizen panel which sets policy for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), and its members are appointed by the governor to six-year terms, subject to state senate confirmation. Three members each must reside in eastern and western Washington, and three are chosen at large.
Traditional sportsmen’s interests should be in good hands with Graybill’s appointment, an avid sport fisherman and journalist with both print and electronic outlets in central Washington. His website is titled “The Fishin’ Magician,” his column runs in several newspapers and he hosts an outdoor radio show, among other activities.
Graybill is a friend, and we go back a long way — to a stint for both of us in the mid-1970s at the now-defunct Fishing &Hunting News, a weekly outdoor tabloid published in Seattle. He and I have fished steelhead and salmon together, and hunted ducks and pheasant. I also fished several times with his brother Rick, a guide for years on Lake Chelan.
Graybill, a University of Washington grad, is a member of the Icicle Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and the Coastal Conservation Association.
Thorburn has degrees from Stanford and Cal-San Francisco, and has worked as a professor of medicine for the University of Hawaii; as the director of Spokane Regional Health District; and most recently as the medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Inland Northwest. She has held offices for the Spokane Audubon Society and Washington Ornithological Society, and was the recipient of WDFW’s 2010 Volunteer of the Year award for efforts to help in bringing sage grouse and sharptail grouse back to Lincoln County.
Basin fishing opportunity
Chad Jackson, a WDFW biologist working out of the agency’s Ephrata office, said that despite a number of bad-weather days, the north Columbia Basin offers some very good fishing opportunities currently.
“Quality” lakes Lenice and Nunnally are fishing very well, Jackson said, for trout in the 15- to 17-inch range; Quincy and Burke are fair for some nice-sized fish, but numbers are down; Upper Caliche is a very good bet, probably the best of the March 1 openers and producing a four trout per person average. The seep lakes below O’Sullivan Dam which are open are improving daily.
Jackson said “gangbusters” fishing is on tap for walleye in Banks Lake and Potholes Reservoir, using bottom walkers with a worm-spinner harness, or the relatively new Mustad Slow Death hooks with a nightcrawler. The latter is fast becoming very popular, used alone with a ‘crawler, or with a couple of beads and a smiley blade. The hook is designed to spin, or “buzz’ when retrieved, and online underwater videos of what it does with a worm aboard is startling.
Best fishing in both waters has been found at 25 to 50 feet, Jackson said.
Springers
The spring chinook fishery on the lower Columbia is off to a better start than last year, according to WDFW biologist Joe Hymer in the Vancouver office. Through Sunday, 485 springers had been counted over Bonneville Dam, compared to 37 last year at this time and 64 as a 10-year average.
Fishing effort almost doubled last week from the week before, but the success rate didn’t rise accordingly, Hymer said. Water levels on the lower river have been higher than optimum recently, he said.
Catch rates last week stood at about one king per 27 rods for boat anglers, and one per 12 rods for bank fishermen. The peak of the fishery usually produces an average of about one-half to one per boat, Hymer said.
The season below I-5 is scheduled to end April 10, but Hymer said Washington and Oregon fish managers would meet prior to that date to analyze run size and catch data, and could very well decide to extend the season right on through the 10th.
Steelhead
The Cowlitz is the place to be for a great mix of late winter steelhead and early spring chinook. Hymer said seven or eight bright springers were caught at the barrier dam last week, while steelheaders in the vicinity of the trout hatchery were scoring at a little under a fish per person average.
Methow steelhead
March 28-29 is the last weekend this winter for steelhead fishing on the Methow, but high water makes it a lost cause. State biologist Ryan Fortier said the river is carrying near-record runoff for this date, and steelhead prospects are poor to nil.
Local trout
Mike Chamberlain at Ted’s Sport Center in Lynnwood said Lake Goodwin, Lake Shoecraft and Lake Martha (Warm Beach) would be some of the better area year-around lakes if a little trout fishing this weekend is on your agenda.
Coming up
Fishermen are starting to gear up for shrimp and halibut seasons. Halibut hadn’t been set yet at this writing, but shrimp season in areas 8-1, 8-2 and 9 is scheduled for May 2 and May 13, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. both days.
For more outdoor news, read Wayne Kruse’s blog at www.heraldnet.com/huntingandfishing
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