2023 Lake Roosevelt Fishery Highlights
- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 20 June 2023 20:14
Year after year, Lake Roosevelt continues to provide extraordinary and diverse angling opportunities that attract enthusiasts from near and far. Thousands of hours of angling time are happily spent catching up to 200,000 fish annually. rainbow trout, kokanee, white sturgeon, walleye and smallmouth bass are the most targeted species.
And the fight to suppress northern pike, a voracious predator that devastates other fish populations, provides additional angling opportunities.
Co-managers from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the Spokane Tribe of Indians, and Colville Confederated Tribes summarized highlights for our readers. Annually, they invest over $9 million dollars to develop and maintain the fishery.
Rainbow Trout and Net Pens
Over 544,000 rainbow trout were released into Lake Roosevelt in May. They ranged from 7 to 13 inches in length and 1 to 7 fish to the pound. Many will grow to about 18 inches by September and are often available in the system for at least 2 angling seasons. The long-term goal is to release up to 750,000 annually.
All rainbows released are triploids, meaning they are sterile and will not interbreed with wild trout. In addition, their adipose fin is clipped. Wild fish with an intact adipose fin should be released to assure only keeping hatchery fish on Lake Roosevelt.
The goal is for a 5% annual return to creel, the estimated amount caught by anglers based on survey data collected by co-managers. The return to creel goal has not been met since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, a streak that managers want to break in 2023.
Supporting this effort are the WDFW Sherman Creek and Ford Hatcheries, the Spokane Tribal Hatchery and 63 net pens located between Keller Ferry and Kettle Falls. Over 40 volunteers support maintenance of net pens and feeding needs from October through their release in May.
In 2023, there were white, green, blue, and orange research tags deployed in rainbow trout raised in Lake Roosevelt net pens. The information will be used to inform catch and angler return to supplement the annual creel survey on Lake Roosevelt.
Spokane Arm Rainbow Trout Supplemental Release
The Spokane Tribal Hatchery annually supplements traditional net pen releases of rainbow trout by releasing fish in the Spokane Arm to add fishing opportunities in a part of the reservoir where net pens are not operated. This year, 13,000 trout averaging 2.5 lbs. each and 30,000 trout averaging 1 lb. each will be sequentially released from April through mid-June.
Walleye
Since 2002, the co-managers have conducted Fall Walleye Index Netting (FWIN) to monitor the walleye population. Monitoring enables managers to track the abundance, age, growth, condition, sex ratio, and age at maturity.
WDFW reports that the walleye fishery has remained stable and resilient over time. Abundance (and therefore availability) has taken a dip in recent years. Due to the strong 2018 and previous year classes that are still in the system, however, larger walleye (16 to 22”) are particularly available. In addition, managers found a large year class of age-1 fish in 2022 that will show up in 2024 as a nice 14-16” fish.
White Sturgeon
Since 2017, a white sturgeon fishery has been open thanks to surplus fish from U.S. and Canadian hatchery programs put in place in the early 2000s to help stem a decades-long population decline.
For 2023, the angling season is moving to September 16 – November 30th. Cooler water temperatures during these months are expected to result in less stress on wild sturgeon caught incidentally by anglers targeting harvestable fish. The size of sturgeon that can be retained is now 53 – 63 inches (fork length). Lastly, the entire expanse from Grand Coulee Dam to the Canadian border will be open. Other regulations generally remain the same.
Looking forward, managers expect to maintain a harvest opportunity for the next few years. In order to protect weak 2011 to 2016 year-class releases, a period of catch and release only is expected to begin sometime around 2029.
Go to tinyurl.com/3m3wsb4d for a 15-minute WDFW Lake Roosevelt White Sturgeon fishing presentation. Background on the effort to rebuild the sturgeon population, the need to alter the fishing season, 2023 regulations, and future expectations are provided.
Northern Pike
This non-native invasive species is a voracious predator that devastates other fish populations. In addition to threatening trout and other Lake Roosevelt fisheries, they can potentially move down the Columbia River to threaten salmon, steelhead and other fisheries.
Suppression efforts, which include multiple strategies from gillnetting to offering rewards for their capture, continue to show promising results. The number of fish caught per net was down from 4.37 in 2017 to 0.38 in 2022. In 2022, we started to capture more pike in the Gifford and Hunters area, indicating they are moving downstream slowly. Fishery managers plan to spend more time suppressing in this area in 2023.
From April through November, WDFW, Colville Confederated Tribes and Spokane Tribe of Indians used gillnetting to suppress northern pike before spawning in nearshore shallows. Said Holly McLellan with the Colville Tribes, “Gillnetting is the most effective capture method for pike. We release all non-target fish alive and keep the pike. We target pike habitat, which is shallow weedy areas. This helps keeps our bycatch low.
The Colville Tribes encourage anglers to participate in the $10 Pike Reward Program to help us protect the Lake Roosevelt fishery. Visit www.cct-fnw.com/northern-pike to learn more about the northern pike reward program.
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Help Lake Roosevelt Fishery Managers! Report 2023 Research Tags
Research tags deployed in rainbow trout have a phone number to report your catch. Please be prepared to provide information such as angler name, phone number, date of capture, color of tag and tag number, approximate location (please use well known landmarks or public boat ramps), whether the fish was harvested, and if you were angling from a boat or shore. You can ask managers additional questions through the tag return line at 509-919-3319. Thank you for participating in this study!
Tags can be physically returned to Lake Roosevelt Fish Tag Study, 1100 S Garfield Rd, Bldg A, Airway Heights, WA 99001