Lake trout in Payette Lake

[22RMX]

First off, welcome to the site and thanks for voicing your concern. I'm sure you are aware that in lakes like Flaming Gorge and others, the two fish species survive just fine together. It could be the fish and game are going for the same plan but want to give the kokes a little breathing room to kind of jump start the kokes, so to speak. You did not elaporate on the long term plan but do you know if they are they are planning on stopping the gill netting after one year or is it long term plan to keep gill netting the lakers? If they only do it for one year, that might be the head start the kokes need to get a foothold in Payette. The thing I do know is the lakers can eat their selves to starvation, if left unchecked. Mainly that is a result of people not keeping the fish and releasing most of them, that is the very issue that faces the Gorge right now. Just my 2 cents worth.

Thank you for the welcome. The duration of this plan is 4 years. This is a direct quote from the management plan: 

1. [b]Objective: Maintain/improve the Payette Lake kokanee fishery by reducing Lake Trout predation.
   Strategy: Reduce numbers of Lake Trout with gillnetting efforts and angler harvest over the next planning period; maintain Lake Trout at low densities to improve kokanee survival.
   Strategy: Supplement kokanee population with fingerling stocking starting in 2020 and monitor results with kokanee sampling gill nets.[/b]
   

Now the specific language "low densities" has no accompanying number identifying how far they will reduce the Lake trout population. From the information I gathered they don't really have a clue how many Lake trout are actually in the lake. It would require an extensive netting survey which is very difficult and would provide a low degree of accuracy. They are just going to implement the plan through the defined time period.

I am in complete agreement that fish populations need to be managed, especially since many were introduced by man, so the body of water will remain a good fishery. I enjoy Kokanee fishing myself, but would personally like to see this body of water managed for Lake trout.