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For weighing fish we are looking for the total weight prior to cleaning. Don will have small, light scales available for purchase so you can weigh them lakeside.
Those are coastal cutthroat (CT) trout. Spotting for westslope CT is much different. The red slashes under the jaws are prominent in most of the pictured fish. CT also have maxillary (upper jaw) that extend past their eyes. Otherwise coastal CT look a lot like RB.
Fish guts should have their air bladders slit so that they sink and they should be thrown well out into the lake so they are out of sight. That will help return nutrients to the lake that the fish will otherwise have utilized.
Looks like you had a fun day!
I remember that TR from nwhikers!
There is a tiny bit of history about the Twin Lakes station in the old Game Department document on the origin of state brood stocks on the Trail Blazer website. Basically, they were talking about it in 1916 and were taking eggs by 1921. They take eggs (westslope cutthroat) in May and June which are then taken to the Chelan Hatchery for rearing. From there fry are sent to hatcheries around the state for stocking. There are traps on inlet streams were fish are captured and spawned. I’ve never been up there when they are spawning fish, but that sure would be fun. I will try and see if I can come up with a contact person.
I’ve never been in there so I can only speculate. I would go in from the roads to the east or take the Little Bald trail up the ridge. The Bumping River would likely be tough to cross, especially early in the season.
I don’t think that using a GPSr is cheating. You still have to plan and execute your route and can’t just follow the arrow.
The text is awfully small. I’ll get that fixed.
In the mean time, you can always increase the size of text in a web page by hitting Ctrl-+ on a Windows machine or Command-+ on a Mac.
I just took a look and thought that maybe they had finally hooked the stocking info into their stocking database so that it would automatically stay updated. But 2018 stocking is not showing so that can’t be the case.
Here’s a fish I caught last year that ran over 23″. No bait necessary!
[url=https://flic.kr/p/24Mb5u6][img]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7903/40548971373_980944349d.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=https://flic.kr/p/24Mb5u6]23+" RB part 1, Brian Curtis[/url]And the vast majority of the fish in the Big Fish thread were caught on lures or flies. I hate bait fishing, too. Even if the fish are deep there are lots of ways to fish the bottom without resorting to bait.
Hopefully Tony will come around and post a photo of his behemoth.
The term predator in the way we often use it is a bit of a misnomer. All trout and char are predators. But we often use the term predator to refer to species that are more likely to prey on fish. The size of high lake fish is determined by a combination of how many groceries are in the lake and how long the fish lives. Invertebrates that make of the bulk of high lake trout diets live mostly in shallow water so the more shallow water a lake has the more productive it generally is. Small, shallow lakes are often better than big, deep lakes. The best high lake prey for trout are fresh water shrimp in the family gammarus. Unfortunately, most lakes are not suitable for gammarus, but when they are there and the population has not been suppressed by overpopulated fish, you know there is a possibility of large fish. And they can get very large. There are no specific state records for high lake fish, but three overall state records (westslope cutthroat, golden trout, and Atlantic salmon) came out of high lakes. I know people who have caught rainbow up to 8 lbs. And turning to predators (in the fish eating sense), a Hi-Laker caught a 37″ lake trout a couple years ago. While trout will eat vertebrates like certain species of salamander, they do not make up a significant portion of the diet of any high lake fish.
There aren’t too many Trail Blazer signs left out there! That was a nice find. Was it a rectangular sign?
It probably wasn’t a mackinaw because there is only one lake over 4500′ with mackinaw (Eightmile) and it doesn’t have EB. A very occasional EB will turn to a diet of fish so that even in a lake full of stunted little EBs there could be one or two bunkers. The North Cascades National Park found an EB in the 3 pound range in a lake full of stunted fish when they poisoned the fish out of one lake. There have also been some experimental and some illegal plants of brown trout and other predators. But even those rarely get to the sizes you are describing. There are lakes that can grow fish that size that are not predators, but they aren’t lakes that are full of brookies.
Thanks for posting this, Jeff. The plan is to remove fish from 10 of the 35 lakes that currently have naturally reproducing fish. They will use gillnets. If, after 5 years, the gillnets have not been effective they will use rotenone. Along with the fish plan in place in the North Cascades National Park this plan has the potential to help WDFW move plans forward to eliminated some stunted populations in their high lakes. So despite the loss of some fishing lakes I think this could be a very positive step, overall.
This is a great question. I sure don’t have any real answers. I could imagine a pulse of productivity getting washed into a lake after a fire. But I could imaging alternative scenarios, too.
You will need to get your own when you become a member and are responsible for your own lakes, but you don’t need to bring your own now.
[quote quote=114861]I have better luck with spoons then spinners. I like the ones that are more cupped in the front. The extra wobble action attracts more fish then the flat crocodile spoons in my opinion. I find I have better luck with spoons and spinners when there isn’t a recent bug hatch. If so, I either have my fly rod or use a casting bubble with fly.[/quote]
I don’t disagree with you. In recent years my go to lures have been the 3/16 Dardevles and Kamlooper Jrs which have a ton of action with a very slow retrieve. I go to a Krocodile when the fish aren’t cooperating and I want to try a dead slow retrieve down deep. It seems like there are times when they are sitting on the bottom and don’t want too much action. That’s where the Krocs start to shine. So they are definitely more if a niche lure for me. The Jake’s Spin-a-Lure is an odd beast because it has very little action but what it does have is sort of random and it seems to drive fish nuts. And it it the best casting lure I’ve ever used so when I go up to ¼ oz it is my go to lure.
I like to use 4-lb test line. You want something that will be as invisible as possible. I use regular mono, but light test braided line will work well and cast better then mono if you don’t mind fussing with it.
The best rod is one that will break down into enough pieces to fit completely inside your pack.
I almost always throw lures that are either 3/16 or ¼ oz. I prefer spoons that are brass with red and normally fish with Dardevle (3/16), Kamlooper Jr (3/16), Jakes Spin-a-Lure (¼) or Krocodile (¼) spoons. But don’t let my preference for spoons over spinners dissuade you from taking Keith’s advice because he catches more fish then I do.
If I’m trolling from a raft I will often use a size F-5 to F-7 Flatfish.
I also carry a fly and bubble setup.
