Next Meeting

NEXT CLUB MEETING IS THURSDAY JANUARY 12 at 7:00 pm.
Senior Center, Kettle Falls
January Meeting Speaker: John Carruth.

Meeting is normally second Thursday of month @ 7 P.M.
Senior Center, Kettle Falls

Club membership fees are $20.00 annually. 
They are not individual memberships, they are family memberships.

MONTHLY NEWSPAPER DOWNLOAD ...
as a Printable Pdf file... CLICK ON MONTH ISSUE
 Club Events
Jan 2012 Newsletter   Merry Christmas everyone
and a
Happy and Safe New Year
   
Jan 2011 Newsletter Feb 2011 Newsletter
Mar 2011 Newsletter April 2011 Newsletter
May 2011 Newsletter June 2011 Newsletter
July 2011 Newsletter    
September 2011 Newsletter  
November 2011 Newsletter December 2011 Newsletter  

2011 Governor's Cup Tournament Application ... Click Link to Download a printable application (Pdf file)

ELECTION RESULTS 

New club president is Jim Meskan, Vice president is Gerry Eickerman, Secretary is Doug Eastwood, Treasurer is Doug Unzeitig, and the new Board member is Fred Young.

NEW YEARS FISH OUT 

15 or so club members attended the New Year’s fish out at Bradbury Beach.  Everybody had a good time, they enjoyed hamburgers and hot dogs, hot Chile, potato chips, hot coffee and hot chocolate.  Didn’t hear if anybody had to clean any fish. (see newsletter for a few photos)

FISHING REPORT

Talking with several club members, trout fishing has been slow, and the weather too poor except for only the most dedicated.  Ice fishing has been good at some of the local lakes that have enough ice on them to safely fish.  Catches have included trout, bass, and perch.  Bobby Nesland and Jim Nance are both avid ice fisherman.

GUEST ARTICLE:

THE UNWELCOME COUSIN -- By Chuck Gades

Northern pike were illegally introduced into Lake Coeur d’Alene in 1973 and other western Montana waters prior to that.  Some subsequently migrated from the lake down the Spokane River into Long Lake.  However, prime reproductive conditions are not present in Long Lake and the Long Lake dam have doubled up to minimize further travel into Lake Roosevelt.  A few have reportedly been caught in Roosevelt but very poor reproductive conditions there have precluded their spread.  They need a silty bottom and abundant weeds for successful reproduction.  Their eggs stick to weeds for proper aeration and the fry hide in the weeds to avoid cannibalism by their parents and other prey.  In contrast walleyes prefer sandy, gravel bottoms for successful egg hatch.  Thus, walleyes proliferate in Roosevelt, pike do not.

Enter the Hugh snowmelt and runoff of 1997 wherein the waters of western Montana flushed northern pike out of the Noxon reservoir, through Pend Oreille Lake (poor reproductive conditions) and into the Pend Oreille River.  The Box Canyon Dam reservoir extends 50 miles from Newport to Ione and is shallow, very weedy, and the current slows considerably.  In addition there are numerous shallow sloughs adjacent to the river that provide early spring warmer water with prolific weed growth.  Alas, the dislodged, wandering pike found an ideal home.  In addition there existed abundant squaw fish, peamouth, perch, suckers, and other scrap fish to fuel their preferred scrap fish diet.  In 2010 the Wash. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife gill netted and killed 755 pike and found only 5 game fish in their stomach contents.   In just a few years word got out from pike fishermen to friends and relatives of the excellent pike fishing in the Pend Oreille River.  Pike caught from 6 to 20 pounds plus were common.  Pike fishermen from beyond the Inland Empire traveled here and also enjoyed the newly found bonanza.  In the year 1900 approximately 400 pike fishermen hours occurred in the reservoir. 

In 2010 the number exploded to 76,000 hours!  Attendant to that came a welcome economic boost to the depressed Pend Oreille County economy.  But along with that came a large controversy.  What was first a welcomed guest by the Kalispel tribe, turned into an un-welcomed one.  The tribe initially thought trophy pike fishing might bring economic success to the area akin to the expensive fly-in pike resorts of northern Canada.  However, subsequent grant monies to the tribe to enhance trout and bull trout survivals changed their focus to one of eliminating the pike.  Secondly, the Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife became alarmed at the potential of the pike further migrating downstream to Roosevelt and possibly all the way to the lower Columbia endangering steelhead and salmon populations.  The Dept. also took the attitude of eliminating the pike but realized that might be impossible given the ideal spawning conditions and continued down steam pike migrations from Montana.  The Dept. is currently proposing rule changes to take the game fish designation from pike, but continuing the invasive specie status, and allowing exceptional two pole fishing in the P.O. River to enhance the taking of more pike.  This could open the door to placing a bounty and enabling the wholesale killing/wasting of pike.  

Other informal discussion includes possible mandatory killing of all pike landed.  Pike fishermen very much favor minimizing any downstream migration and wish to cooperate with the Dept. to manage pike to acceptable levels in the only body of water in the state available to us for fishing them.  But that is meeting with very limited success given the very negative attitude of the Dept. and the tribe towards pike.  There are a great number of argumentative points on both sides of the issue that cannot be covered adequately in a short article.  Briefly the fishermen feel that the pike love it in the P.O. River, will stay there, the few that wash over into Roosevelt have not and will not successfully spawn and establish any substantial population fueling further downstream migration.  That would have already occurred via the Spokane River over the past 38 years.  Why not really help the salmon and steelhead by shooting some sea lions!  For the Department’s coverage of the issue go to http://wdfw.wa.gov/ais/esox_lucius.  Underline  _  between esox and Lucius.

BOAT LAUNCHES 

This month I am featuring the next launch south of China Bend.  North Gorge this is the first launch south of China Bend that has camping sites; it is about 17 miles north of Kettle Falls on highway 25.   This launch provides access to the good walleye fishing in the area just below The Dalles (10.3 miles north) as well as the 4.6 miles between North Gorge and China Bend.  The road and parking area is paved, with a good dock to moor your boat while you park your vehicle.  The Parking is minimal for non-campers.   There are 9 camping sites, drinking water is available and pit toilets but there are no other facilities for campers, no dump station, and most of the camp sites are fairly short so they are more useable with a camper, tenters or smaller motor homes.  But this is a nice camping area with a protected cove to keep your boat in. The minimum Lake level for use of this launch is 1280 feet so with “normal pool” elevation of 1289, if the Lake is down 9 feet this launch is not usable. 

CLUB STUFF AVAILABLE

The club has an underwater camera available for club members to use.  We also have a pretty good inventory of fishing videos available to members; will try to get an inventory around at the next meeting.  We have 5 inch color decals for interior or exterior placement of the Clubs logo.  They work great on a boat, or bumper, or inside a window.  We also have a set of GPS training booklets, and Walleye fishing booklets, check with Bobby Nesland for prices.  I also hear there are hats and tee shirts available, check with Doug Eastwood for prices.

TAKE A KID FISHING AND HIS GRANDPA TOO