Northwest Fishing Reports

On the main page on this site today there is an article about Catch and Release that I found interesting but lack a little information that I am see abused more and more these days. As a matter of fact there was a report posted in the Latest Reports Section on this site just today for Lake Chelan. The problem is fishing with bait and releasing the fish. Page 15 of the current regs under the trout section says "When fishing with bait, ALL Trout (except STEELHEAD) equal to or greater than the minimum size are counted as part of the daily limit whether kept or released.) You can't go out catching Trout or Kokanee(listed under Trout) and throw the small ones back just so you can limit out with larger fish. There are even a few guides fishing Lake Roosevelt that are bragging on different Facebook fishing forums that they are throwing 18" to 20" Kokanee back so their clients can catch the 4 to 6 pounders. I recently went to a seminar in Wenatchee and the guild presenting the seminar spoke a length about how fragile Kokanee are and most released Kokanee will die. I don't understand the problem on Lake Chelan, the limit is 10 Kokanee(plenty for anybody) then you can go fish for Lake Trout or Cutthroat. Why are people throwing back a 10 inch fish just so they can catch a 14 inch fish. Although illegal to do I can understand (but not condone it) why they are doing it on Lake Roosevelt, there is a lot of talk that the next state record Kokanee will be caught this spring by somebody. I fish Lake Roosevelt a lot and I hope that either myself or my wife catch the next state record, could happen. If somebody does catch that next record fish is it really something to be proud of if you had to do it illegally? I don't know if this is a problem on the Westside but I know that I'm tired of watching it happen out the Eastside of the state.

I think it is a problem all over the state. People don't seem to read and know the regs well enough. Even people who know the bait rule may not know that scent is bait. I will say that some of the regs can be hard to figure out exactly what is right. There have been many long threads proving that. But the bait and trout rule has been around for awhile.

Hlindsay, ya I forgot to mention scent, thanks. Another problem now on Lake Roosevelt is the release of all wild trout. I emailed WSFG with the question what do you do if your fishing with bait and catch a wild Trout and it is bleeding. Their answer was "release it and it counts against your daily trout limit".

If you couldn't have kept it, you should not have to count it. I under stand (don't like it) that you have to release a dead fish, other wise everyone would have fish that were going to die. But counting one you could not keep doesn't fit with the way the reg is written. I would think a judge would say that the reg basically states if it is legal to keep you have to count it. I wouldn't want to test have to that. I have found over the years that the game dept. will answer questions and not stand behind the answer. Also different people in the game dept. will give different interpretations of the regs.

They count it against your limit because you are impacting fish they dont want caught as a side catch. If they didnt count, you would "catch", and likely kill ,more fish they want to protect.

Counting them against your limit forces you to stop fishing sooner - so you kill fewer protected fish.

Here is an example of the difficulty in knowing what the rule is. I wanted to see how it is written on releasing wild fish on Lk Roosevelt and I don't see the rule at all in the regs or changes online. Larry I get what you are saying about the impact, can you tell me where to find the rule on releasing wild fish.

I have no clue. I dont fish that area much at all.

When I want to find something in the regs, I do a word search of the downloaded PDF file on my computer. Thumbing through the paper regs is a hopeless task

Reg is on 2nd page of eregs, rule started 12-3-2016.

The important and relevant factor is as hewsebob stated above, per the regs, when fishing for trout with bait, ALL trout count toward the daily limit whether kept or released. Caveat for Roosevelt: kokanee are EXCLUDED from trout daily limit, so one can legally catch and/or release 6 kokanee in addition to 5 rainbow.

I raised my concern on the rule change regarding redband retention and daily limit on the forum under a separate topic, and it appears, WDFW has now gone on record claiming stating any redband trout caught and released while fishing with bait counts against the daily trout limit. No way to prevent a redband trout from taking your baited offering either.

Here's the other topic - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23650" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The rules are confusing especially when it comes to bait fishing and what has to be counted in the limit when the fish is released. When I read page 11, this is how interpret the rule. Page 11 defines "trout", as used in the regs,includes all trout plus grayling (salmonidae family) and kokanee, therefore, bait fishing for grayling,kokanee, and all the rest of the trout have to be included in the limit when bait is used and the fish(trout/grayling/kokanee) is released. Deep hooking a fish in the slot limit is less ambiguous. Page 11 states that any fish that has swallowed the hook or is hooked in the gill, eye, or mouth, should be kept if legal to do so which means that fish in the slot have to be released even if they won't survive.

namaycush, the term that WSFG used when I researched this topic was "those bleeding fish are Eagle food". This practice of releasing injured fish has always bothered me especially when I would fish on a charter boat out of Westport. Somebody would bring in a wild salmon at a time when you couldn't keep them so the deck hand would do every thing possible to release the fish without bringing it out of the water. On one trip a few years ago I remember having four large King Salmon floating dead around the boat at one time. I don't know what the answer is to releasing an injured fish that you can't keep other than just do your best. The next thing I expect for Lake Roosevelt will be barbless hooks and then maybe no bait, but that's just my guess.

namaycush wrote:The rules are confusing especially when it comes to bait fishing and what has to be counted in the limit when the fish is released. When I read page 11, this is how interpret the rule. Page 11 defines "trout", as used in the regs,includes all trout plus grayling (salmonidae family) and kokanee, therefore, bait fishing for grayling,kokanee, and all the rest of the trout have to be included in the limit when bait is used and the fish(trout/grayling/kokanee) is released. Deep hooking a fish in the slot limit is less ambiguous. Page 11 states that any fish that has swallowed the hook or is hooked in the gill, eye, or mouth, should be kept if legal to do so which means that fish in the slot have to be released even if they won't survive.

No need for confusion, see pg15 of the pamphlet and note the species listed under TROUT heading:

Rainbow trout
Brown trout
Golden trout
Tiger trout
Grayling
Cuttthroat trout
Lake trout
Kokanee

Now read the section to the right of the TROUT list, in particular:

"When fishing with bait, all TROUT (except STEELHEAD) equal to or greater than the minimum size are counted as part of the daily limit whether kept or released."

Note the restriction above applies when fishing in rivers, streams, beaver ponds, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs.

I don't believe a no bait rule will happen at Roosevelt because it would eliminate all bank angling - no way to keep trout from taking bait while fishing for walleye, bass, burbot and other species. A better solution, statewide, would be to change the silly TROUT bait rule when trolling. I have NEVER deep hooked a trout while trolling unlike what happens when bait fishing from shore or still fishing from a boat.

JMHO, the trout bait rule should be changed to read, "When still fishing with bait, all TROUT (except STEELHEAD) equal to or greater than the minimum size are counted as part of the daily limit whether kept or released."

This would cover all still fishing conditions regardless whether from shore or floating device, powered or not.

I contacted WDFW a few years ago and inquired about the rationale behind the bait rule. I was told its purpose was to mitigate fish killed by anglers trying to remove hooks from trout that swallowed the bait. This simply does not happen when trolling and I am going to submit this recommendation the next time WDFW opens general rule pamphlet to changes.

hlindsay wrote:Here is an example of the difficulty in knowing what the rule is. I wanted to see how it is written on releasing wild fish on Lk Roosevelt and I don't see the rule at all in the regs or changes online. Larry I get what you are saying about the impact, can you tell me where to find the rule on releasing wild fish.

The reason you can't find it is because it wasn't processed as a rule change, it was processed as a pamphlet correction. I don't agree with how this was done, who checks for pamphlet corrections? Also, pamphlet corrections are not included in WDFW email alerts, so unless someone specifically searches for pamphlet corrections, they'll never find it.

I knew the change was supposed to take effect in early December and was checking the emergency rule page on WDFW website daily for notice of change. I am also subscribed to WDFW email alerts and it never showed up in an alert either. Wasn't until someone posted on a different forum the rule had taken effect 12.3.16 did I finally find it. It was late December before the email alert went out. Poor execution on WDFW's part.

I agree with hewesfisher 100%. I normally troll - sometimes with bait - and in all of the my years of trolling 99.999999........% of fish are lip hooked easily undone and released unharmed. I normally release all fish unless bleeding so I usually go home empty handed. The rule does need to be changed as said by hewesfisher. This rule applies to the retention of - but it doesn't mean you have to stop fishing. After you have caught and either kept or released said fish legal limit you can no longer target said fish for retention. But keep in mind there are usually other species of fish in most bodies of water. I've caught numerous bass, panfish, perch and catfish while trolling with my usual trout set-up. I spoke with a WDFW officer at a lake while he was checking my boat about this subject. He was reluctant to give me a clear answer until I pressed him. His answer was yes you can keep fishing as long as you are no longer targeting that species of fish. If accidently caught you must release the fish. So anyway just be sure to follow the rules - stay legal - and hopefully some of these rules will be changed to make more sense.