I’m not suggesting that everyone throw down their steelhead and trout sticks and head to northern Idaho to fish kokanee salmon, but the news from Lake Pend Oreille—that it’s kokanee salmon population is bouncing back from years of depressed numbers—is good for those who target the lake’s world-class rainbow trout.
Pend Oreille used to produce the largest rainbows in the world, but it’s kokanee population crashed in the 1990s, leaving those big ‘bows without a substantial food base. In addition, the lake harbors lake trout and those fish were competing heavily with the rainbows. So this is good news and means that it may be time to head across the border to Idaho and learn that rainbow fishery once and for all. Here’s the piece from the CDA Press.
HOPE – About 200,000 Lake Pend Oreille kokanee have returned to Granite Creek to spawn this winter, making it one of the largest returns in a dozen years.
The lake’s population of kokanee – a land-locked sockeye salmon – has rebounded enough that for the first time since 1999, fishermen next year will be able to keep some of the kokanee they catch.
Right now, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game is collecting kokanee eggs at Granite Creek, the mouth of which is about a dozen miles south of Hope on the east shore of the lake. Harvesting of kokanee eggs has been going on annually since the 1970s.
Through Wednesday of last week, Fish and Game employees and volunteers had collected 10.5 million eggs through 11 days of collection. They will continue until late this month, depending on the weather.
The department is likely to collect about 14 million eggs total this year at the Granite Creek fish trap.
In both 2007 and 2008, the smaller number of kokanee returning to Granite Creek only gave up 500,000 eggs. That was for 20 days of collection in both years.
“Our ultimate goal is to bring the fishery back for the sportsman,” said John Rankin, manager of the Cabinet Gorge Hatchery in Clark Fork, where the eggs are taken. The hatchery was built to mitigate fish losses from Albeni Falls Dam.
The fertilized eggs are placed in incubators for about three months at the hatchery, and then are fed until June when they are released as 2-inch fry into Sullivan Springs. That stream flows for about a half mile, then merges with Granite Creek, not far from where they empty into the lake.
Sometimes a few excess fry are released at different locations around the lake shore. Kokanee can and do spawn in suitable shoreline gravels.
From start to finish, it costs about $18.50 to produce
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