Early indications from the Lake Pend Oreille kokanee fishery suggest fishing has been pretty good (and sometimes red hot). Even better, the fish are shaping up to be on the bigger side for Pend Oreille this year. We’ve measured lots of fish in the 10 inch range, and a few are pushing the 12 inch mark. Kokanee will continue to grow through the summer and should make for a very nice fishery.
After watching anglers put in nearly 80,000 angler hours to harvest over 150,000 kokanee in 2014, we were excited for another great year of fishing in 2015. Unfortunately, a hot and dry summer resulted in kokanee staying deep and smoky conditions kept some anglers off the water. Fishing did pick up in the early fall, and anglers enjoyed quick limits and nice weather after the water cooled the smoke finally cleared. The big upshot is that our annual surveys suggest lower angler catch was not related to poor population abundance. We did document a decrease in adult kokanee abundance (age-3 and age-4) during 2015, but this was primarily related to lower age-3 abundance. All other year-classes remained strong. Fishing opportunities should continue to be good in 2016 and beyond as the younger year classes are some of the strongest we have seen.
Spawning kokanee abundance in 2015 was among the highest in recent records, though it was down slightly from 2014. At the Sullivan Springs trap, where kokanee eggs are collected to fill the Cabinet Gorge Hatchery, 9 million eggs were collected during the month of November, and egg-take was completed prior to Thanksgiving. This was the second shortest amount of time to reach quota, trailing only the 2014 effort. The remaining kokanee returning to the trap were allowed to spawn naturally in the spawning channel upstream.
Additionally, we are beginning to develop a run of early-spawning kokanee to the Sullivan Springs trap for the purpose of further improving the fishery. We hope to test whether early-spawning kokanee grow bigger and faster than their late-spawning counterparts. Although they may be out of the fishery earlier in the year, fishing for early-spawning kokanee may actually begin earlier in the year. We are currently operating a creel survey focused on kokanee anglers to evaluate how well these early-spawning kokanee contribute to the fishery. We will continue to evaluate these fish in the coming years.
The bottom line is that the kokanee population remains strong and fishing should continue to remain productive in 2016