Lskiles: "Correction Please" Squawfish inundated Curlew Lake up to 1998. They hovered under the trout net pens looking for scattered feed and a chance at a escaped trout fingerling. The resort owners were paying a bounty on their own to try to help recover the trout. Enter the tiger muskie introduced by the State. Not bucket biologists. Tiger muskies are asexual like mules so their number can be finitely controlled. I helped the biologists plant them many times starting in 1998. The state biologists gave me a population chart of the squawfish predatory decline via the tiger muskies through the next 15 years wherein it declined to almost zero. Very successful program. The trout net pen success has been total.
Now do the tiger muskies eat some trout along with other species? Yes. Analogy: In 1998 you got to catch (let's say) one trout. Muskies ate zero--they weren't present. Today muskies eat two trout. You catch 8. I know you want to get rid of the muskies so you can catch 10. But that is foolhardy logic because you will end up at zero again. Balances in all lakes have to be recognized.
Enter the perch bucket biologists 4-5 years ago. The fish biologists were incensed because they are a major competitive factor for trout food species. Perch populations have proliferated to the point the lake is a substantial destination for perch fishermen. When I stay at a resort now, most fishermen are perch fishermen. The muskies prey notably on perch. A Minnesota study currently underway indicates that perch comprise 40% of the muskie diet in that lake. The tiger muskies in Curlew Lake are not populous enough to substantially reduce the booming perch population. It is too unpopular for the biologists to increase the muskies plant numbers as the trout fishermen would have a fit if they did so. Want more trout? Catch more perch and plant more tiger muskies.



















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We call them pike in the Northwest. We have them in many lakes here in spite of many gill netting efforts to eradicate them. I grew up in MN where they were always called "northerns". So whenever i hear someone refer
to them as northerns, I know they are from the upper midwest.

Welcome aboard, fish-N-fool. Nice to have another pike aficionado to stir the waters.

the atheist turned to God and said "we have discovered how to make life"!
'Oh really, and how is that"? replied God.
"Well, first we take a little dirt......" "Hold on" said God, 'you get your own dirt!"

Just in time for the tiger muskie bite coming on to fatten up for winter!!

Just pour a little can of gasoline quickly onto the nest and run. come back an hour or two later and they will
be dead and/or gone. Hint: DO NOT light the gas; just let it soak in

Thank you. I just finished a time table of the War for Independance and adoption of our constitution but didn't
know the 1783 month/date. now i do

Yes, its very slow--maybe one MPH, no fast sections except where it dumps into the Columbia. But there is a dam
there to stop you.

Amen the pike bapabear. A few have escaped the nets.

I think most people just park by a county road bridge (several) and work up and down the banks from

I don't fish it but understand its pretty good for brown trout

Sorry you are 10 years too late. Your grandkids would have been thrilled at the tremendous pike fishery then
before the gill netting started decimating the population now.

I have a Subaru Forester and its a GREAT transportation vehicle but definitely not a towing vehicle for basically
anything. Great cruising MPG with 2 or 3 people with minor luggage but load it down, pull hills, or headwinds and it starts shifting down.

Very large net, very long needle nose pliers, side cutter pliers if you have strong hands; otherwise small bolt cutters to cut the hooks if hooked deep. When you net one DO NOT pull up on the net but leave it in the water and unhook the fish in the net in the water. If he feels the net pressure, he will roll violently and get horribly twisted up in it. Let him rest in the water while you get set up for the pic. Take a deep breath, lift him out, measure, take pic and put him in the water before you exhale. Hold him by the tail until he offers to swim away on his own. Catch him again next year when he is bigger yet!!!

Generally concentrate on 4-10 feet of water. Ideal is to find 1-3 feet of open water over weedbeds. If the weed line is abrupt due to stained water; then troll or cast along the deep edge of the weedline. Use any plug or spoon you wish. When pike go on a bite; keep your fingers out of the water. Good luck.