Brian - the fish are transported to Spokane for incubation and rearing, here's more from today's Grant County (ready?) Journal:
Lahontan cutthroat study at Lake Lenore
- Thread starter Buzzy
- Start date
Thread drift in the wayback machine.
The mentioned specialist Caine Brand grew up in Whatcom county and is a friend of mine. His dad graduated Ferndale high school and was part of a band The Henhouse Doors that played our high school dances late 60s and early 70s.
His dad was the drummer and Iron Butterfly's hit Ina-gadda-da-vida-was their specialty.
17 minute drum solo and strobe lights.
Wow, that was some cool shit man!
So a friend of mine participated in the study a couple of the days.
He told me (since I am a data nerd) that there were several age groups. And several sizes 12-13 , 17-18, 20-22 inches. Also, that this was a staff driven and proactive activity/study. Good numbers were captured. In 3 days over 600, only 3 from previous day(s) (repeat captures). There was multiple locations throughout the lake that the capture happened in, and good numbers were in all locations, not just the north end.
Now, I understand the "good old days" feelings, but if you don't fish today there will not be a "good old yesterday" story/feeling. Embrace what you have today. Tight lines
He told me (since I am a data nerd) that there were several age groups. And several sizes 12-13 , 17-18, 20-22 inches. Also, that this was a staff driven and proactive activity/study. Good numbers were captured. In 3 days over 600, only 3 from previous day(s) (repeat captures). There was multiple locations throughout the lake that the capture happened in, and good numbers were in all locations, not just the north end.
Now, I understand the "good old days" feelings, but if you don't fish today there will not be a "good old yesterday" story/feeling. Embrace what you have today. Tight lines
Interestingly, in those good ole days, one simply never caught a 12” fish. Small was 18” and 30” fish were not uncommon at all.
The smaller fish had to be there, but they must have occupied a different area of the lake than where the masses of us fished.
770 fish captured - 20 fyke nets set around the perimiter of the lake and two on the big island. The biggest fish captured was 26". I think this study that Mike Schmuck, DFW Bio, initiated, shows there's a good population of fish in Lenore. The distribution from the study indicates the fish can be anywhere..... and it is a big lake. Time to explore!
I caught my first ever fly caught fish at Lenore. Windy as hell, me in my hip boots fishing from shore getting soaked not knowing what the hell I was doing.
Good memories. Haven't fished it in probably 20 years but used to catch a lot of nice size fish there back in the day.
SF
Good memories. Haven't fished it in probably 20 years but used to catch a lot of nice size fish there back in the day.
SF
Wayne Kohan
Life of the Party
Probably the first lake I tried flyfishing. Donut tube, neoprene waders. Did what I was told on the north end of the lake. On like the third cast, hooked my neoprenes, an impossible task to free it up in the old donuts. Now I would just clip off the fly, but for some reason that did not occur to me (I'm sure I didn't have the thousand of flies I have now) and I headed back to shore. Still pretty much impossible to get out of that situation with the fly still attached to your flyrod. Wish someone would've filmed that for me.
I think the largest fish I've ever caught on a dry fly was a 29" (measured) Lahontan cutthroat from Lenore... maybe 20 years ago. There was a great hatch of callibaetis for most of the afternoon, (looked like popcorn everywhere!) and we never saw a fish rise for the 1st couple hours. Then boom...fish were everywhere! I switched to a dry, and hooked up on the first cast. That fish towed me around in the tube....!
(no picture because I didn't have a cell phone then)
(no picture because I didn't have a cell phone then)
Bringing this back from the catacombs. Starting to anticipate hitting L in a month and I thought back to this thread. I've always been fascinated by it and had many great days there while attending CWU. Did Mike Schmuck ever publish a report on this study....or give a presentation to any of the fly clubs in WA?
strandedfly420
Freshly Spawned
Midges make up a majority of the food source for trout in lakes. There is limited large prey in lenore. Food is not a problem. That's why fish are big there. It is a large lake with lots of food. When they are in the shoreline in spring they are concentrated to spawn. Streamers work well to trigger defensive strikes, like fishing for salmon and steelhead in freshwater. The biggest trout I would catch as a guide on the Madison would be exclusive midge feeders. I got to know almost every big fish in a given section over the years, spending at least 200 days in a row on the water. The biggest fish would be caught in the same holds over and over again, and would only be caught on midge patterns. True the fish over 18- 20 inches start to become predators, and fishing streamers would catch big fish, the monsters would switch back to feeding on midges. Less effort and calorie burn eating a heavy and constant supply of tiny bugs. Like bears and whales, it's small food in plenty that allows for high calorie and low burn. Also the biggest browns I've landed in the Venice, ninnally merry lakes over 30 years were on size 20 midge emergers in a foot of water that were gorging on midges stacked along the wreed edges on wind ward sides of shallow bays. The old teeny t300 sink tip and a dragonfly nymph or floater with a leech at dusk will pull alot of fish. And some of the larger fish...but the hogs are allways caught on midges in shallow water for me. The only way there isn't enough food in an Eastside lake is if there is natural spawning, and low fishing pressure. Since lenore is stocked, it's impossible to reach that fish load. Poor size is most likely related to water temps rising due to warmer winters and hotter summers messing with good feeding temps. When it gets warm fish must go deeper where there is little food compared to the weed beds along shoreline. Lenore has allways been a up and down fishery. Some days nobody catches much, next day madness. Today streamers, tomorrow midges. Today south end, tomorrow off the rocks on west side. Today wading shore, tomorrow trolling deep.
At about 1,600 surface acres and 8 miles in length Lenore is intimidating as hell to fish unless fish are spawning in known locations. Maybe if you lived in Soap Lake and fished it 100 times a year you could get it dialed in but then you would listen to all the jokes about living in Soap Lake.....
Over here in the extreme upper northeast corner of the state we have a lake with a similar enigma-Sullivan Lake. Like Lenore, it is a 3 mile long lake with about 1,300 surface acres so it is similar in size but at over 300' feet deep it too is intimidating to fish. It has a vast population of Kokanee salmon that rush up Harvey Creek in a wave of red every fall to spawn. With so much food it is home to some very large fish with the state record brown being caught back in the 60's at over 22#. That record stood for over 50 years I think. It still holds very large fish, Brown's, cutthroats and rainbows, but receives very little fishing pressure. Most people that camp in the park at the lake do little more than just walk to the edge of the lake-which has little fishable shoreline-and throw a line in just because it's water with little hope of ever catching anything.
A dam was built on Sullivan Creek early in the last century that raised the lake level about 20 feet above normal. Sadly that dam still exist and every fall they lower the lake and every spring they raise it again. It is vexing because there is nothing between the lake and the Pend Oreille River that would be affected by spring runoff and artificially changing the lake's level every year inundates what could be some great riparian zone that would supply an enormous amount of fish food. It is strange to drive by such a beautiful lake on a summer evening and not see fish rising to an evening hatch.
The powers that be don't have the vision to develop the lake and fishery into a destination location that people would drive to for outstanding fishing. The trilogy of towns in the area- Ione, Metaline and Metaline Falls are essentially ghost towns by now with logging and mining having ended and each year they just get worse. The one thing that brought a lot of people to the area was the scenic fall color train rides every year along the river. Then the government shut down the rides and declared the tracks unsafe and the cost to replace them was more than the rides would make in 100 years. So anything that would produce some revenue in one of the poorest counties in the state would be a boon and a destination fishery would be a good first step.
Last year there was a lot of buzz about stocking bull trout in the lake and Harvey Creek but I have heard nothing since. I checked the WDFW site today but found nothing newer than May 2024. Bull trout could make a good living on all of those kokanee and were probably native to the watershed at one point. Having been around the west for years and seeing a number of otherwise insignificant little burgs fueled by anglers dollars I have the sense that the whole Sullivan Lake thing is just an opportunity lost.
Over here in the extreme upper northeast corner of the state we have a lake with a similar enigma-Sullivan Lake. Like Lenore, it is a 3 mile long lake with about 1,300 surface acres so it is similar in size but at over 300' feet deep it too is intimidating to fish. It has a vast population of Kokanee salmon that rush up Harvey Creek in a wave of red every fall to spawn. With so much food it is home to some very large fish with the state record brown being caught back in the 60's at over 22#. That record stood for over 50 years I think. It still holds very large fish, Brown's, cutthroats and rainbows, but receives very little fishing pressure. Most people that camp in the park at the lake do little more than just walk to the edge of the lake-which has little fishable shoreline-and throw a line in just because it's water with little hope of ever catching anything.
A dam was built on Sullivan Creek early in the last century that raised the lake level about 20 feet above normal. Sadly that dam still exist and every fall they lower the lake and every spring they raise it again. It is vexing because there is nothing between the lake and the Pend Oreille River that would be affected by spring runoff and artificially changing the lake's level every year inundates what could be some great riparian zone that would supply an enormous amount of fish food. It is strange to drive by such a beautiful lake on a summer evening and not see fish rising to an evening hatch.
The powers that be don't have the vision to develop the lake and fishery into a destination location that people would drive to for outstanding fishing. The trilogy of towns in the area- Ione, Metaline and Metaline Falls are essentially ghost towns by now with logging and mining having ended and each year they just get worse. The one thing that brought a lot of people to the area was the scenic fall color train rides every year along the river. Then the government shut down the rides and declared the tracks unsafe and the cost to replace them was more than the rides would make in 100 years. So anything that would produce some revenue in one of the poorest counties in the state would be a boon and a destination fishery would be a good first step.
Last year there was a lot of buzz about stocking bull trout in the lake and Harvey Creek but I have heard nothing since. I checked the WDFW site today but found nothing newer than May 2024. Bull trout could make a good living on all of those kokanee and were probably native to the watershed at one point. Having been around the west for years and seeing a number of otherwise insignificant little burgs fueled by anglers dollars I have the sense that the whole Sullivan Lake thing is just an opportunity lost.