Lake Pend Oreille’s kokanee comeback

December 8, 2012

Photo gallery: A once-popular Lake Pend Oreille angling season is making a comeback in 2013 after a multi-million-dollar decade of controversial efforts to revive fabled kokanee and trout fisheries from the brink of collapse. After kokanee — landlocked sockeye salmon — were washed downstream into Pend Oreille by a 1933 flood, they became a wildly popular fishery in numbers large enough to support commercial fisheries. Gerrard-strain rainbows were planted in the lake in 1941 and the trophy fish grew rapidly on the feast of kokanee. The world record rainbow was caught in Pend Oreille in 1947 and the world record bull trout (a native fish) in 1949. But kokanee began declining significantly the 1960s. Scientists say the leading causes are the fluctuating lake levels caused by winter power demands through Albeni Falls Dam (built in 1955) and the 1966-69 introduction of mysis shrimp, which biologists later learned compete with juvenile kokanee for nutrients. These photos help tell the story of fame, fall and revival.

Kokanee staging to spawn stack up by the thousands in November and December in Granite Creek, a Lake Pend Oreille tributary.

Wes Hamlet of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, hoists the 37-pound world record rainbow trout he caught in Lake Pend Oreille on Nov. 25,1947. Hamlet is in the leaky wooden boat he was fishing in with partner Tony Moen, also of Coeur d’Alene.

In 1949, Nelson Higgins caught the world record bull trout caught in Lake Pend Oreille. It weighed 32 pounds.

Visitors to Albeni Falls dam outside Priest River get a beautiful view of the river, mountains and hydro facility that controls flow and level of the lake on July 10, 1994. The spillway is to the left and the powerhouse and power lines to the right. Fluctuations in Lake Pend Oreille water levels behind the dam during winter can dewater eggs deposited in shoreline gravels by spawning kokanee. (File)

A bald eagle cruises over a Hickey Brothers Fishery boat on Lake Pend Oreille in Hope on Tuesday, February 9, 2010. Hickey Brothers Fishery was hired out of Bailey’s Harbor, Wisconsin to reduce the population of lake trout .

Lake trout swim in a giant tank before releasing being released after a biologist clipped fins on the fish Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003. Fish and Game is using a net to catch lake trout during a research fishing project on Lake Pend Oreille. A Wisconsin fishing crew was hired by the Idaho Fish and Game Department to net lake trout, also called mackinaw, to find out how many there are and whether they can be controlled to help kokanee and bull trout.

Idaho Fish and Game Officials have decided not to follow through with a plan to commercially fish lake trout out of Lake Pend Oreille in order to save baby kokanee and bull trout. The plan was preceded by a test netting of fish by a contract fishing crew that began in October, 2004. This File Photo was taken at that time—JT Fisherman Todd Stuth holds a medium-sized lake trout before releasing it after a biologist clipped fins on the fish Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003. Stuth is using a net to catch lake trout while on a research fishing project on Lake Pend Oreille. Stuth and his crew were hired by the Idaho Fish and Game Department to net lake trout, also called mackinaw, to find out how many there are and whether they can be controlled to help kokanee and bull trout. Stuth and his crew are from upper Michigan.

A lake trout is caught in the netting on a Hickey Brothers Fishery boat on Lake Pend Oreille on Tuesday, February 9, 2010.

Lake Pend Oreille Fishing Guide David Beshunsky nets a nine pound rainbow trout as fall fishing picks up at the lake in 2002. Beshunsky was one of several guides and businesses hurt by the decline of kokanee.

A dead kokanee that’s already spawned decomposes on the bottom of Granite Creek in December 2012 as the run of 200,000 spawners continues to parade out of Lake Pend Oreille and into the creek where hatchery workers will take their eggs

Hatchery worker Ken Felty and Idaho Fish and Game Department fisheries biologist Andy Dux set up the kokanee spawning station at Granite Creek to take eggs that will be raised at the Cabinet Gorge Hatchery for release back into Lake Pend Oreille.

A hatchery worker expresses eggs from a hen kokanee at the Granite Creek spawning station. The eggs will be fertilized with milt from male kokanee and raised at the Cabinet Gorge Hatchery for release back into Lake Pend Oreille.

Kokanee staging to spawn stack up by the thousands in November and December in Granite Creek, a Lake Pend Oreille tributary. Here they are jumping a small waterfall in the spawning channel build by the Idaho Fish and Game Department, which is where their eggs and sperm will be taken for raising their progeny in the Cabinet Gorge Hatchery.

Kokanee are land-locked sockeye salmon that die after they spawn at the age of three or four.

Kokanee are a major forage fish for putting size on Lake Pend Oreille’s trophy predator fishg. Fly fisher Aaron Richter caught this 31.5-pound, 42-inch-long Gerrard rainbow trout a tributary to the Clark Fork River and Lake Pend Oreille, on March 31, 2010.

Bald eagles are attracted to spawning kokanee, which provide a feast when the fish congregate into bays and small streams suring fall and winter. About 130 bald eagles were counted near Granite Creek as Lake Pend Oreille’s revived kokanee population was spawning in early December 2012.

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