Northwest Fishing Reports

Well, I'm sure everyone over here on the eastside knows that sprague lake was killed off the other day much to my dismay but I wont' get into it again. I was wondering though if anyone has heard of or seen anything unusual come to the top. Most of us know of the 18+lb catfish,triploid size trout, large walleye,huge carp and numerous other species of fish but there must be some giants in there. Anyone heard of any early results?

Have not heard a single work, not one. Makes me wonder why.

you remember the sturgeon from the previous poisoning. Someone brought it in via a pickup truck.

I dont get why somebody would kill off the lake what is the point? I wanted to cat fish there pretty bad dang it!

I have posted a report on Sprague, its in the Northwest Warm Water Foundation topic.

wat do u mean poison dump some stuff in thur

travislikesfishing wrote:wat do u mean poison dump some stuff in thur

huh?

travislikesfishing wrote:wat do u mean poison dump some stuff in thur

The fish & game department kill the fish in the lake by putting Rotenone in the water. Basically it paralyzes the gills of the fish so they can't breath, killing the fish. Here is some info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotenone

YellowBear wrote: I have posted a report on Sprague, its in the Northwest Warm Water Foundation topic.

I can't find the location. Can you help me, and perhaps others locate your article?

OK, here is what I learned when I called the Fisheries Manager that deals with Sprague.

22,000 to 25,000 Walleye killed in Sprague.

About the same number of Tench.

Very very few bass, large mouth or small mouth.

A lot of grass pickerels, all very small of course, but an impact on young of the year fish.

Not so many perch, in fact almost none. Almost no Bluegills.

A few crappie, a few very large ones, but in short, they did not leave feeling that they had just lost a major crappie fishery when they were done.

About 1000 Channel Catfish.

About a half million, to perhaps a million, CARP. This really blew them away. They knew there were a lot of them, but they did not expect this.

OK, the deed is done, like it or not. At least with that many carp gone the water quality should be tremoundous next year. In fact, because of the number of carp, they are going to stalk more Channel Catfish back then they had planned. They are an effective predator of the carp into a larger size.

I guess time will tell.

well that poison will last in water for up to six months, its gona be a longer than a year for it to become great. but it can only get BETTER. just like a glass of wine:bounce:

SO what was the logic behind poisoning the lake?

25k walley killed that makes me sick:-&

Its downright pathetic... They should have moved the fish elsewhere. It can be done, its done in Minnesota all the time (rearing ponds).

beresford13861 wrote:well that poison will last in water for up to six months, its gona be a longer than a year for it to become great. but it can only get BETTER. just like a glass of wine:bounce:

Usually in the N.W. they rotenone a lake in early fall and replant it in April. Sprague Lake is in the open farm country of Eastern Washington, getting a lot of wind and sun. These would accelerate the depletion of the chemical.
The following is a statement from a cooperative study by several universities around the country, one being UC Davis, about the effects of the chemical: (Brackets are reference numbers)

Breakdown in water: Rotenone is rapidly broken down in soil and in water. The half-life in both of these environments is between 1 and 3 days [51]. It does not readily leach from soil [51], and it is not expected to be a groundwater pollutant. Rotenone breaks down readily by exposure to sunlight [12]. Nearly all of the toxicity of the compound is lost in 5 to 6 days of spring sunlight or 2 to 3 days of summer sunlight.

I am hoping that the game department will find a solution to that lake. They have killed it off several times over the last 20-30 years and they are still having problems.

Lyndon wrote:SO what was the logic behind poisoning the lake?

Half a million to a million carp sounds like a real good reason to me, despite the fact they also killed off other species. While it was tragic to waste the walleye, they were known to be "closed mouth" in Sprague. I can only wonder if the over abundance of carp impacted the walleye.

I was very surprised to see the estimates of the different species, especially for a warm water fishery - few crappie, perch, bluegill, or bass - all primary warm water species. I'm willing to bet the carp had a negative impact on spawning activity for these fish. I wonder why there were no trout statistics.

I hope things get better than they were. We've fished Sprague many times in the past couple years, and even though we caught fish, I sure wouldn't call it a stellar fishery. There's no going back now, so only the future will tell.

i remeber like 4 or 5 years ago i went fishing there somewhat often and i remember that sprague and loonlake had the much bigger trout than alot of lakes but ive fished both this year and last year and did really poorly and the fish whur just average

I read these little facts about sprague the other day.


$379,380 for rotenone, equipment and staff
80,000 lbs of rotenone
$68,000 to restock sprague
$1.5 million estimated drop in local economy between the 2 kill offs
55% of lake was walleye
30% carp and tench
6.4% catfish
6.1% crappie, bluegill, perch
2.5% bass
1% rainbows
4,000 crappie salvaged by electroshocking
27 walleye
60 catfish
Spring 2008, crappie, bluegill, rainbows, channel catfish, maybe tiger muskie, no SM bass or walleye

Another thing that I read was that sprauge is the largest rotenone project in WA and one of the largest in the West. Sprague is 2,000 acres.

Is the same guy doing the math as before:-k