Lake Lenore Lahontan Rescue - volunteers, anyone?

[Buzzy]

Seven volunteers (four from Wenatchee Valley Fly Fishers and three from Dry Side Flyfishers (Moses Lake)) showed up at Lake Lenore's fish trap to help Mike Schmuck, our regional fisheries biologist, net and transport trout caught in the "spawning" trap. The trap was loaded (crowded to say the least) with trout:

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WDFW had one transport truck for the project. Trout were dip netted from the trap and loaded into the fish tank in the back of the truck. The fish tank is equipped with an O2 diffuser.

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Rod Sand netting cutthroat trout ------^

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Rod Sand with a net full of trout ------^ We gauged how many trout and how heavy the loaded net was by the number of grunts it took to get the net up to the top of the tank. Three grunts was about all I could help lift.

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I don't know how old some of the Wenatchee Valley volunteers are but here's 86 year old Bob Levine with a net load of trout. ----^

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Without being able to refill the fish transport tank with water after each loadout, Mike Schmuck instead netted the fish from the tank at the release site and handed the net to two of us who then passed it to two men at the pump channel shoreline. It was time consuming and very physically tiring. But I will say everyone of us enjoyed the day, no slackers!


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Mike transported six truckloads of trout, five loads were netted from the tank and released into the channel shown above, the sixth tank load was released via the tank truck knife valve. Most of the fish, when released, immediately swam away but some were obviously stressed. I used a long handled net to nudge some of the fish that were stressed and witnessed almost everyone of them swim away.

How many fish did we handle today? It wasn't possible to accurately count the fish, there simply were too many fish and only one truck. I was trying to estimate and gauge how many per net, per truck load - my estimate was in excess of 1,200 trout.

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Mike Schmuck with a 25-3/4" Lahontan cutthroat. ----^

A few parting thoughts - I think Mike Schmuck and WDFW are doing a great job with Lake Lenore, Mike cares deeply about this fishery. The lake obviously has a healthy population of trout. There were still many, many trout in the feeder stream; depending on stream flow and several other factors, Mike may want to do another fish rescue effort.

In the future, WDFW isn't going to use the trap for spawning purposes - they find it much quicker to set seines to collect the fish. Their egg/milt collection is done for 2023. In a perfect world, WDFW would be permitted and funded to construct an exclusion weir preventing the trout from ascending the creek where there's danger of become stranded and then suffocating: this project is on WDFW's planning agenda.

There's a chance WDFW may want to perform another one of these "rescue" days in the next week or so.

Oh yes - there were four pelicans very much interested in what we were doing at the release site, I hoped to see one scoop up a trout. I'm sure there are four pelicans sitting a bit lower in the water this afternoon.

One other thing I should mention, the bucks and hens are really ripe. My waders were pretty darn dirty by the time the day was done, lots of eggs and milt clinging to the fabric. ;-)

 

[Mike Ediger]

Wow, thanks for helping!!!! I hope Karma rewards you all with tight lines.

 

[Jim F.]

A well-deserved thank you to you & all of the others involved, Pat!

 

[Buzzy]

A well-deserved thank you to you & all of the others involved, Pat!

Thanks, Jim - it really was a lot of fun. Seventy and eighty plus year old men acting like kids in a candy store! There were some really big fish in the trap, all of were excited to see the big 'uns. // Pat

 

[Josh]

Very cool!

 

[Starman77]

Kudos to all who participated and thanks to @Buzzy for the good report with photos! Appreciate all the work Mike Schmuck has put into Lenore and other lakes in his district!

 

[NRC]

Well done @Buzzy and co!

 

[Billy]

Kudos to all who participated and thanks to @Buzzy for the good report with photos! Appreciate all the work Mike Schmuck has put into Lenore and other lakes in his district!

Yup great job Mike and Pat and everyone.

 

[Engee]

Great job organizing this Pat and a big thank you to all of you that worked to make this a success!

 

[Buzzy]

Great job organizing this Pat and a big thank you to all of you that worked to make this a success!

Thanks, Bro - but Mike's the organizer - his contact list for two fly clubs is what got this in motion.

 

[Eastside]

Thanks Pat.

 

[Bambooflyguy]

Good job Pat! How are you feeling today? Older?

 

[Pez Vela]

Nice work you guys! Wish I could have driven over (5 hours) to help! Pat... let me know when the next rescue might be. Would be fun to supervise that operation..

 

[Buzzy]

Good job Pat! How are you feeling today? Older?

Steve -
I came into the house yesterday afternoon and my wife says "you smell fishy" - oh man, such possibilities with that comment, huh? I was tired, except for riding from the trap to the pump station and back again (five times) there weren't any rest periods. Mike asked if we wanted to take a lunch break, one of the 80+ year old guys said "let's get it done". I'm fine today!

 

[Bambooflyguy]

I’ll have to try to make it over to Lenore to try to C&R some of your hard work! I haven’t fished there since they busted those jerks netting the cutts.....

 

[skyriver]

Thanks guys!

 

[Bakerite]

Great to see Pat! Thanks for posting this and your work.