Fishing Forum

Fished mantua today. The weeds have come up quite a bit and with the cold weather I figured it would be a trout only day, but as i hoped on the boat dock out came three nice largemouth. That got me excited so out fishing we went. Anchored off in ten feet of water out in the prime spawning location and sure enough the first fish of the day was my dad hooking up a very nice largemouth. At first he thought it was a trout until I looked back there and saw that there was too much bend in that pole to be a trout. Pretty beat up from the spawn. Then I cast out and hooked up on one of the kamloops rainbows they put in there last fall. If those are the jumpinest trout ever created I will be danged. As soon as I hooked up on it, it ran for the surface and came out of the water about four feet. As soon as it hit the water it did it came right back up again. I was impressed. Fished a bit more, but nothing to brag about.
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Nice report Pred sounds like ya had a good time. What the heck is a Kamloops rainbow?
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[reply]There are a few myths that are so ingrained that they approach legend status. One of the best examples of this is the "Kamloops" trout. The history of this discussion could span several pages. For now, we will condense the story. Kamloops is actually a small city in the interior of British Columbia. There are numerous small lakes in the area that were barren of fish before the mid 1800s. Early pioneers stocked trout into these lakes and ponds from surrounding waters. The first generations of these fish grew to Herculean proportions. Eighteen to twenty pound fish were reported from legendary lakes such as Paul Lake. Now that's a huge rainbow trout for any size pond! After the standing stock of prey species was trimmed down by the first fish, the size of the "Kamloops" trout dwindled to the size of the rest of their rainbow trout cousins. The analogy here is like the first starving man to the banquet hall. There is an abundance of food, but the stove can only cook so much.

There actually are a couple stocks of rainbow trout in the interior of British Columbia that deserve the status of the Kamloops name, however these fish are rare.
The Gerrard stock of rainbow trout which reside in Kootenay Lake are probably the most well known of these fish. They evolved in deep lakes of glacial origin with cold, clear water and kokanee as their prey species. These fish can grow to huge sizes: over 30 pounds in places such as such as Kootenay Lake in B.C. and Lake Pend Oreille,Idaho. There was consideration a couple years back to give Kamloops their own place in the IGFA record books. I don't believe it ever happened.
IFG

Thanks IFG that was interesting and fun to read.
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Hey Predator, What was the water temp. It must have really come up in the last week cause it was only 48 to 50 degrees last friday. Do you think they are starting to spawn or you just caught one around the spawning beds? Let me know.
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Heres some interesting information I picked up today. I was talking with the mayor of mantua city today and last fall they put out a bid to pave and extend the parking lot so that it goes over the spillway. Finally parking lines and a bigger lot. Never used to be a problem, but since the trout plantings it has needed it badly. They are also going to put in a boat dock and restroom. They will also be improving the ramp area and putting in some beach area along the dike. The real kicker in myt mind is the much needed restrictions they are considering putting on the lake. They recieve too much pressure on the weekends to allow waterskiing and are getting too many boats on the lake at a time. So they are thinking about limiting the number of watercraft that can be on the lake at one time.

Scooter, I sent you a pm.

As for the question about spawning locations, theres lots of available stuff. The bass clubs put a bunch of tires in there that make great pockets in the weeds that the fish use to spawn, but theres a lot of natural sites as well. 90% of your bass guys fish the east side so take a walk along the dike over there and do some looking around. You will find them.
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Here's your myth...

As far as I know, Bass spawn at around 65 degrees. I know the males will move up a few degrees ( 63 ) earlier to start cleaning beds. I think it's still a couple weeks out. As far as beds look on the east side around the shores and out a ways and you will spot some good bed spots.
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[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/community/community.cgi?do=user_signup"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/community/community.cgi?do=user_signup[/url]

click on this bedfisher , and welcome aboard !
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i'm going to guess her at around 11 pounds , close ?

great photo too !
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Nice fish....whats your point? I didn't say Kamaloops didn't get big, I just said that not all Kamaloops do. Will the Kams in Mantua go 20#s, without an adequate high protien prey base? If they do, they'll be eating Bass, since they poisened all the Chubs out a couple of years ago. I was just trying to provide a little info without boring everyone to death on the age old argument on genetics vs. enviroment. My mistake.

[size 2]IFG, I didn't intend to offend. Kamloops have been in the Gorge for years. The record rainbow from 1979 (26 lbs. 2 oz.) from the Gorge is a kamloops. [/size]

[size 2]Here's a quote from an email received from Tom Pettengill from 2001...[/size] [blue][size 2]We were stocking them in 1982 when I was project leader at the Gorge and as far as I know continued to stock them until the last few years when we lost access to them through the Federal Hatchery system. I think if we were going to see more 20 pounders since the record fish caught in 1979 that we would be seeing them now. Lately we have just been stocking a strain of rainbows from Eagle Lake. The kamloops we were stocking were Gerrard Kamloops from British Columbia if my memory is correct. We were stocking the domestic strain of kamloops that many places have worked with. The Gerrard Kamloops are a long lived, slow maturing fish.[/size][/blue]

None takin. I was meerly trying to point out that truely big fish (what ever they are) need a big diet to get huge. Simply planting Kams in a lake doesn't instantly provide big fish. Kams have a big name out west and I didn't want everyone assaulting Mantua thinking they were going to get huge Trout. They have the genes but, will only grow to size of the buffet. Thats why your FG Bow is big. Lot's of protein in those FG Kokes.

I tried to put a picture of a 20# (23# 8oz. to be exact, by my chessy little scale) Gerard sub-strain Bow I C/R on Pend Oreille but, my son isn't home and I can't figure out how to work the scanner. Hey I'm an IFG....not a computer one.