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“You're in the southern part of the state, right? Head up to Indian Heaven. That is one of the few areas where brookies don't overpopulate lakes and several of the lakes there have very nice ones. Some are managed for more than one species, so don't give up right away if you catch something else. Waptus Lake has some very nice brookies along with rainbow and bull trout. There are a ton of lakes full of stunted little brookies I'd be happy to send you to if you like to catch lots and lots of them.”
I haven’t looked at the regs recently, but I think you have to release all bull trout.
I’ve heard that the population in the Hiddens is unusual because it is the only known bull trout population that is utilizing seasonal streams for spawning.
“It is the Hi-Laker meeting that is coming up this week. Hi-Lakers meet on the third Wednesday of every month at 7:30 PM. They have a new meeting location this month. This new meeting place is located off NE 150th and 17th Ave NE. Take the NE 145th Exit from the I-5 freeway, go east to the first stop light (15th Ave NE). Go north for a couple of blocks and then turn east onto NE 150th. Finally turn north at the first opportunity, which is the entrance to Fircrest (right across from 17th Ave NE). The building is the first one of the left with the Flagpoles. Lots of parking immediately on your right across from the building. ^^^^Trail Blazers meet the first Thursday.”
Nice one Sooperfly, I had definitely forgotten about Black Lake. But I want to know what sort of parallel universe we were inhabiting this weekend. Here I am with my black pants, black top, and blue and black OR hat, and a nice fish, though at 16.75″ it isn’t nearly as big as yours so I guess we don’t quite match. 🙂
“There are a bunch of drive to high lakes with browns in them down in southern WA. Lakes like Steamboat, Olallie, Big Mosquito, Goose, Chambers, Council, Takhlakh, etc. The browns in the hatchery system here, at least, are typically too large in the summer time to effectively stock in remote lakes so, downstream issues aside, that is one reason they weren't used more historically. I really don't know any hike-in brown trout lakes that aren't too fragile to be posting in an on-line forum.”
You just aren’t fishing in the right lakes. 😀 We looked at this issue a few years ago and came up with something like 15 varieties of fish in high lakes within 45 miles of seattle. But that is oversimplifying things a bit, because some of those varieties (mainly Atlantic salmon) aren’t available any more. I guess I’ll start with what we commonly stock and why.
Several laws limit what can be stocked in high lakes. The Wilderness Act has been interpreted to allow fish stocking to be grandfathered and they interpret that to mean only species that were stocked before the wilderness was created can be re-stocked into the lakes. Because RB and CT were the most common fish to be stocked they are the most common fish allowed. In recent years the NMFS has become very concerned with downstream issues with stocked fish. Often their concerns are misplaced, but they still have to be dealt with and they want nothing but native fish put into headwater lakes. They have actually stopped the stocking of brown and lake trout into high lakes in recent years. Mainly because of concerns about impacts on bull trout downstream. That pretty well limits stocking to native fish which are coastal cutthroat and rainbow in west side lakes and westslope cutthroat and rainbow in east side lakes.
But that doesn’t eliminate other varieties of fish. We have a lot of lakes that are still getting goldens which are extremely popular with anglers.
Some other fish cause problems themselves. Eastern Brook char, for instance, are able to spawn in almost any lake into which they are put and they quickly take over the lake producing a lake full of stunted little fish that can severely impact the native prey base in the lake and produce really lousy fishing. So EBs are almost always avoided.
Here are a list, off the top of my head of types of fish you’ll find in WA high lakes:
rainbow
coastal cutthroat
westslope cutthroat
Yellowstone cutthroat
golden
eastern brook
brown
lake trout
grayling
bull trout
tiger trout
various hybrids of ct, rb, and gtSo that’s a long way around saying that yes, you will will mostly find RB and CT, and that will always be the case because the native varieties of fish will always form the backbone of the program, but can find a whole bunch of other fish if you keep looking around.
“The only other high lakes with bull trout are Cougar, First, and Middle Hidden Lakes in the Pasayten. All are native populations. The reason they aren't stocked is that they are very difficult to artificially propagate and there is no program to do so. They are, however, being considered as a possible predator in overpopulated high lakes. Unfortunately, it is just in the talking stages right now and there are large technical hurdles to overcome, but over-populated lakes are a huge problem and bull trout are a definite future possibility.”
“I've been to the Hiddens over Memorial Day weekend a couple times. It is a great time to be in there, though the water is generally still cold and the fish seem sluggish, at least in First and Middle Hiddens. ^^^^I finally got out for a short day trip with my kids on Memorial Day. It was a cold day, but we didn't get any rain. We were in the Goat Rocks and caught a bunch of fish, but the largest was only 11.5″.”
“I'm not quite sure what you mean by constantly or temporarily. The noise I heard that appeared to be associated with the northern lights (but probably wasn't) was only on one night, and then only for the short time I was awake. It was really cold and I crawled back into my sleeping bag reasonably quickly so I can't really say how long it lasted but it was constant during the time I was awake.”
“Brookies are what you'll catch. The RB and BT haven't been stocked in there in a long time, though there still may be some browns. The EBs are self-reproducing.”
The best thing to happen would be to eliminate all out of control populations completely so the lakes could be managed under controlled conditions. The next best thing would be to control the population. In that case the predator species would have to be periodically re-stocked to keep the population in check. It is much more difficult to manage the quantities of fish in the lake this way.
Tiger trout are likely to be used rather then browns for future population control projects. Several years ago the NMFS scuttled proposed brown trout plants in several high lakes citing concerns about the browns dropping out of the lakes into river systems and no browns have been stocked in high lakes in the northern part of the state since that time.^^^^Tiger muskies have been successfully used in Idaho high lakes to control EBs and they may be tried here. There is no way they can be too effective. If they wipe out all the fish in a lake they'll die of starvation and we'll be able to go in with fish that don't reproduce. That would be the best situation of all but it is more likely they won't be able to eliminate all the fish unless the lake has no cover whatsoever.
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Originally posted by brownster145^^So if a lake in an official “Wilderness Area” hasn't been planted with, say, golden trout in the past, it probably never will be? Is that right? I'm not quite understanding that part.
^^That is exactly right. It isn't impossible for a new species to be introduced, but it would be a special case like… see below…^^
I know of at least a few high lakes in the northern part of the state that have brown trout in them. Tomyhoi comes to mind.
^^Quite right. There are a handful, and Tomyhoi is one. It is an example of a wilderness lake that had a new species introduced. In this case, a predator species, brown trout, was stocked in an attempt to control a runaway population of EBs. This is the most common reason you'll see new species stocked in the future. Stunted populations are a disaster for the native flora and fauna in high lakes and finding ways to control them will be a very high priority in upcoming years. Brown trout have not been terribly effective. They can have some effect on stunted populations and they do grow large, offering a desirable fish for anglers, but they don't solve the problem and there are major downstream concerns. In the future you are more likely to see sterile predators like tiger trout or tiger muskies.^^^^
Interesting. On the topic of landlocked salmon, what about kokanee? Are they ever planted in high lakes?
^^I only know of one case where kokanee have been stocked in a high lake in recent years. There is a lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness that was stocked with kokanee in 1918. About 10 years ago, amazingly, it was discovered they are still there.”
