Last night I went up to Henrys Lake to get some pix of the spawning trout. The water quality is very good and the fish are coming into the spawn house without showing stress from low water quality. Right now there have been 1500 this first week of the run and they are appearing to be on a regular bases. The hybrids coming into the spawn house are very large with several in the 8 to 10 pound range. These are males as the sterile females do not come into the hatchery. It was amazing to see the huge trout fight to get into the race-way.
More about this later - here are some pix of two of the huge male hybrids that were in the hatchery.
[signature]
Nice pics! Man I've missed fishing Henry's. The water levels have been pretty tough the last three years up there so it's been tough to convince myself to drive 4 1/2" hours to fish for the stressed troutskies at Henry's. I'm glad to hear you guys are getting some decent water this year. It'll really help all the fisheries in the 'park.
I remember on of the funnest times I've ever had fishing was up there one fall week a few years back when I made freinds with the harbor master at the wild rose marina. He allowed me to cast barbless wooley buggers into his boat harbor from the floating docks. There's a small stream that flows into the harbor there and the fish were stacked up deep. I was catching 2 to 7 lb trout about every fifth cast. Hybrids,cuts and brookies. I musta caught a couple hundred fish that week. I let most of 'em go...but kept one big 'ole brookie that I mounted up on some driftwood and gave to my dad for christmas that year. Every time I go to his house and see it I go back in time and re-live that magic week.
Oh... for the good old days huh?
What's the outlook for the outlet this spring? Do you think there'll be any decent flowing water out in the flat country this year?
[signature]
Thanks for the update . Nice to know there is some nice hybrids up there still .
[signature]
It is amazing how fast reported bad news travels in this fishing community. Last year was the best big fish year that I have ever had in my 50+ years of fishing Henrys Lake. There were only three of us fishermen that fished the lake consistantly all summer last year and we all had the best fishing, in terms of big fish, that we have ever had.
I took 62 fish over 10 pounds and three fish in the 20 pound range ( the largest was a 34 1/2 incher with a 24 inch girth). The key to the large fish was that they were all in water from 4 to 7 feet deep. For some reason they did not move out into the deeper water and most fishermen who fished Henrys, fished the deeper water and reported terrible fishing. The total numbers of fish have been down, but it looks like the numbers are coming back which will keep more fishermen interested. Also last season, the bait fishermen had a very tough time catching fish on Henrys. And since the fish were in the shallows, the trollers also had a tough time.
There appears to be some very interesting facts about the sterile hybrids in the lake. Not all hybrids are sterile, but the Fish and Game are trying to sterilize most of them. It appears that the largest fish in the lake are sterile females - they do not have any reproductive organs and do not run into the hatchery. The two hybrids pictured are both males and they run into the hatchery. (I guess they are like us male humans - we try!!!!) This lack of stress on the females at spawning time allows them to grow larger and their bodies balloon with the most of them at 27 inches having a girth of 20 to 22 inches. If you go back to last year's posts about Henrys Lake, there are some pix of these sterile females that I caught last year.
The Fish and Game also purchased 250,000 brook trout eggs from Canada and hopefully will have 100,000 fingerlings to plant this season. They will be planting some in June and some in September to check the survival rate of the two plants. Each plant will be marked differently to see what happens. The hatchery manager is excited to see the gill net results in May and the season to see what in happening. I am very optomistic that this season will have more fish - fewer large ones - but enough mixed in to keep me on the lake. Last year's number of big fish will be very hard to duplicate.
Sorry this is so long - but it may help some of you.
[signature]
Bill,
Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to getting up there a couple of times this year and hitting Henrys and IP Res as well. I appreciate the updates about the lake from such a reliable source!
[signature]