Alan Liere’s hunting and fishing report for April 4, 2024

Thu., April 4, 2024

By Alan Liere The Spokesman-Review

Tip of the week

Lind Coulee, part of Potholes Reservoir, is a good place to start fishing for walleye, either in the coulee itself or just out of the mouth at Perch Point.

Heads up: The Inland Northwest Wildlife Council and WDFW are again hosting a May 11 Spokane Kids’ Fishing Event at the Fairchild Recreation Area on Clear Lake. A large number of rainbow trout will be contained in the lake, creating a “pond” full of trout accessible from the shoreline, and each youth between 5 and 14 years will have the opportunity to catch up to three of these. Afterwards, they will be allowed to keep their fishing rod, a T-shirt and their fish, which will be cleaned and bagged for them. Fish that are not taken home will be donated to the North County Food Pantry in Elk. With the donation of at least two canned food items, also to be donated to the food pantry, donors’ names will be entered in a drawing for some fantastic prizes. Register your child for this fishing event by April 26 by going to www.wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/contest/youth

If you don’t have your 2024 fishing license, it can be purchased online, but the two-pole endorsement and salmon punch card can’t. For those, you’ll need to go to a local authorized dealer.

WDFW is looking for volunteers and hiring paid positions to assist fin clipping salmon at statewide hatcheries during spring and early summer. Anyone interested in volunteering at a WDFW hatchery can go to WDFW’s website. Anyone interested in applying for a paid marking position can look for positions in their area and apply through Kelly Services. These temporary, full-time positions pay $16.49 per hour with the ability to start immediately, no experience required, and training provided.

Overheard: Kokanee populations tend to boom and bust. The decline in numbers of kokanee in Dworshak Reservoir should contribute to faster growth rates this year. Anglers should start to encounter 10- to 11-inch kokanee by the peak summer fishing months in 2024. It is expected that by 2025 Dworshak will have 12- to 13-inch kokanee again.

Fly fishing

Silver Bow Fly Shop said there should be great fishing up on the North Fork Coeur d’ Alene River with the warmer weather ramping up the dry fly fishing and bringing some fish out of their slow, cold winter lies. Take your BWOs, midges and nemoura stones for dry flies, and include some March Browns and Skwalas, even though it is still early for these hatches. Use streamers and nymphs in the slow, deep pools until fish get a bit more active on the surface, and focus on the river below Prichard.

Dry fly action on the St. Joe should improve with warmer temperatures in the forecast. The flows may start bumping up next week as things warm up, but if it’s not off-color, the Joe fishes fine on the rise.

Trout and kokanee

Lake Roosevelt water levels haven’t changed much in the past week. They are holding at around 1,283 feet above sea level. Trout fishing has only been fair, and kokanee fishing no better.

The best trout fishing in Eastern Washington this past week has been at Liberty, Rock, Amber and Coffeepot. Lake Spokane has been decent from shore. Sacheen and Diamond lakes have been slow to heat up.

The Colville reservation lakes such as Buffalo, Omak and Twin are planted every year with trout, and some of these fish are huge. The tribe has planted more than 16,000 trout in Rufus Woods and will release an additional 30,000, averaging 2 pounds, in April and May. Twin lakes will be planted with 7,500 trout averaging 1.5 pounds in April and get 600 rainbow that average 7 pounds the same month. Twin Lakes also offers terrific fishing for largemouth bass. Buffalo Lake will receive a plant of 2,000 rainbow averaging 1.5 pounds in April and 600 trout that will weigh 7 pounds in April and May. Buffalo Lake also has good numbers of kokanee. At the W.T. Wooten Wildlife Area in southeast Washington’s Columbia County, five of the Tucannon Lakes are open – Blue, Spring, Rainbow, Watson and Deer. Curl Lake opens the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and Big Four Lake is no longer stocked.

Many lakes in the Idaho Panhandle are scheduled to be stocked with trout this month. Cocolalla will receive 4,500 rainbow, Fernan will receive 6,600. Besides being close to Coeur d’Alene, Fernan has floating docks and miles of shoreline. Gene Day Pond (also known as Osborn Pond) will be the first to be stocked with 1,000 trout and should be good. Jewell Lake, which has a fishing dock, will receive 2,700 trout and also has channel catfish and bluegill, Kelso will get 2,500 trout, and Spicer Pond near the town of St. Maries will receive 1,000. Post Falls Park Pond offers a great fishing spot for kids and anglers with special needs. Anglers can easily fish the small pond from a fishing bridge, shore or fishing platforms.

The Clearwater Region of Idaho will also receive rainbow trout plants this month. Kiwanis Pond will receive 1,500, Robinson Pond 1,000, Spring Valley Reservoir 5,400, Tolo Lake, which also has bluegill bass and catfish, will get 700 trout, and Winchester Lake will receive 6,000. Mann Lake is multispecies, but will receive 6,000 rainbow trout and 4,500 yellow (banana) trout.

Salmon and steelhead

Salmon and steelhead fishing is open daily from the mouth of the Columbia River to the Interstate 5 bridge under permanent regulations. Spring chinook should be arriving in good numbers at any time.

Spiny ray

Washburn Pond on Highway 17 past Brewster is loaded with largemouth bass and bluegill. You can use a large boat if you wish, but the motor cannot be run. The lake opened on Monday.

Porcupine Bay on Lake Roosevelt is still one of the best bets for walleye. Friends bouncing jigs there on Saturday took a dozen walleyes and a “monstrous” smallmouth they estimated to weigh over 5 pounds. The best smallmouth fishing is just around the corner.

Hunting

The general spring turkey season begins April 15, and the northeast area of WDFW’s Region 1 has a lot of big ones. WDFW’s LeClerc Creek and Rustlers Gulch wildlife areas are great hunting spots. Private land between Spokane and Colville hold one of the highest concentrations of Merriman turkeys in the West and there is also a lot of excellent turkey ground to the east and west. In southeast Washington, WDFW’s Asotin Creek, Chief Joseph and W.T. Wooten wildlife areas also have good turkey hunting each year.

The limit for turkeys in Spokane County was increased in 2022 to allow hunters to harvest three birds. If you don’t have a private land connection or area in mind, you can find areas where property owners have agreed to let hunters hunt their lands on WDFW’s Private Lands Hunting Access webpage.

Contact Alan Liere at spokesmanliere@yahoo.com