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Here’s the first post I’ve seen celebrating the 1 July deadline passing at National Parks Traveler. Lots of problems with this summary. Here’s one of my favorites:
“There is a small group of people who are very passionate about this, and they got the impression that starting today on July 2 we were going to be out there using poisons to remove fish from all of the lakes. And that’s not happening,” he said. “The principal action that we’re taking at this stage in the game is we’re doing nothing. By that I mean the most important step that we can take in terms of ecological restoration of these lakes is simply to stop introducing non-native species.”
And the very next sentence after saying they are doing nothing is:
Ashley Rawhouser, the park’s aquatic biologist, said crews will focus their efforts on removing fish from 27 lakes.
Although they are celebrating the deadline passing, t he fact is that Congress can still direct the park to allow fish stocking. We need to make sure our Senators know that. Letters are more important then ever.
I’ve seem ’em.
I live on Hood Canal and we see there here all the time. It amazes me that their habitat can extend all the way from sea level to high in the mountains. I haven’t seen them in high lakes enough, however, to correlate good or bad fishing to their presence.
The brookies aren’t likely to be too picky. You’ll need something that can cast well so don’t go too light. I recommend spoons 3/16 oz for lakes like those. They are small, but cast well at that weight. For lures at that weight I’d go with Kamlooper Jr or Daredevil spoons. Red/white or some combination of orange, red, and/or black on brass would be my recommendation. It wouldn’t hurt to throw a 1/4 oz spoon in just in case the fish are deep and you need to let it sink (as is often the case with brookies) but in a lake where they are stunted pretty much anything is likely to work.
Use 4-lb test mono for line and you should be good to go.
It was the Leopold Report in 1973 that led to the change in National Park policy to eliminate fish stocking. The general story of lakes being stocked in the 50s and 60s but not later is true for most National Parks. We’ve seen the exact same thing in Mt Rainier and Olympic National Parks here in Washington. Stocking was stopped in the early 70s and some lakes are left with naturally reproducing populations.
They have however, started to eliminate spawning fish in some lakes in Mt Rainier National Park. They’ve been quiet about it so it hasn’t drawn much attention. They’ve at least started to talk about eliminating some brookie populations in Olympic NP.
The reason NCNP has had continued stocking is because of its unique history. During hearings prior to creation of the park officials were specifically asked if stocking would continue and they assured that it would. The park was also split into both a regular National Park and two Recreation Areas where management differed. Now they are lumping management of all those units together under the rubric of the Stephen Mathers Wilderness that encompasses most of the Park.
There are very few lakes with reproducing fish in NCNP were the fish are not stunted. In general, lakes in the park are far less productive then lakes in the Rockies and with the reduced carrying capacity it seems to be more difficult to achieve a good balance with natural reproduction.
I’ve never hiked in Glacier, but I have hiked in the Great Bear Wilderness (and other wilderness areas more distant from Glacier in Montana). It is a beautiful area and we had a great 8 day trip in there.
Here is a really good piece in the Tri City Herald. This is, by far, the best opinion piece I’ve seen in any publication.
You can hear the segment here. It starts at 5:08 and runs until 13:00.
I thought Sandy did a great job, too.
And my music trivia of the day: the bumper music you hear when you tune in at about 5:08 is from a song by the group Television.
A story on the bill hit McClatchy Newspapers this morning. Here it is in the Tri-City Herald.
Here’s some coverage in the Wenatchee World.
There are some general guidelines to help you sort through those blue dots.
Get off trail. The more popular a lake is the more likely the fish get cropped off when they are small. There are lots of exceptions; lakes that are short walks on trail that have good fishing. But in general you want to find places that don’t get a lot of traffic.
Look at small lakes. Big lakes stick out on the map as obvious destinations. They are worthwhile, but don’t forget about the small lakes nearby. No lake is too small to check out. Most of the small pots you check out won’t have fish, but every once in a while you’ll stumble on that special place.
Keep exploring. If you keep going back to the same place you’ll never discover the next secret spot.
The other problem that leads Knapp’s work in that direction is that he is almost always looking at naturally reproducing lakes vs no fish. As we know, that normally means high densities vs none. Even in cases where they looked where fish were being stocked it was often on top of spawning populations.
In his blog Knapp makes reference to a study he did that found high lakes in Yosemite had low resistance but high resilience to fish introductions. What that means is that lakes in Yosemite with fish showed changes in native biota but that when the fish were removed the populations were able to bounce back quickly. It only took a couple years. One of the interesting things buried in the paper was that fish density and lake depth were key predictors in evaluating resistance. IOW, this backs up the NCNP findings where they found the most damage in shallow lakes with high densities of fish.
[FriendlyFlyFisher-check your inbox, I sent you a PM]
Here is a blog post by Roland Knapp, the lead researcher working on impacts of stocked trout in the Sierras. He talks about research showing effects of stocked fish on lakes in Maine and mentions the NCNP issue.
http://anuranblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/trout-impacts-and-stocking.html
Here’s the NY Times article he links to on the effects of fish stocking in Maine. It is well worth reading.
I’ve been to a lake that looked like it was wiped out by a massive avalanche. the lake was full of snow and logs and a good swath of the valley had been mowed down. We didn’t see any fish but I heard later that they survived. OTOH, there are some lakes that are thought to suffer avalanches that prevent fish survival. Cup Lake in Chelan County is a prominent example.
Ruby is an interesting lake. It definitely does show signs of having a lot of avalanche activity. Fish do survive there, but it certainly is possible that could cause winterkill issues in some years.
