Fall in the Flathead

[waksupi]

I went to the club shoot today, and stopped down at the white fish hole on the way home. They aren't running yet, but the river sure is pretty! There is some fresh snow hid up there in the clouds.

[justingrosche]

I guess I'd never put any thought to where Somers was, but now that I think of it , I've been through there several times when I commuted to kalispell for work. Like the photo shows, its beautiful country.

[square butte]

Used to love the kokanee run up the Fathead back when they were still with us and snagging was legal. Man you could sure fill the frezer back then.

[waksupi]

Kokanee are running up in Graves Creek.

[DLCTEX]

Beautiful!

[Blacksmith]

Shucks I thought Waksupi fell in the river.

Blacksmith

[ph4570]

Very nice.

[MtGun44]

Beautiful country, great time of the year.

Bill

[462]

I'm envious of anyone who lives in Western Montana.

[crabo]

Doesn't look like Dallas! I'm jealous.

[scrapcan]

Damn we got 5 inches of snow following .5 inch of rain. Power out for about 4 hours. Plows not rigged yet. Those pictures are looking really good today.

[dale2242]

Beautiful lake , Ric.
A buddy and I floated the Rogue Friday and caught 4 steelhead.
You and I are lucky, by choice, to live in areas that offer gret hunting and fishing oppertunities.
Gotta love fall fishing.
Coho will be running soon and the steel head will start biting better when the Chinook get on the redds...dale

[Finster101]

Beautiful country for sure. I am envious.

[square butte]

I was not aware they had been able to re-establish the Kokanee population to any signifigant level since it crashed in the mid 80's or so. Know they poured frye into to lake for lots of years with not much results. One year we lived rigth at the mouth of the Swan on Flathead lake. The whitefish run was incredible that year - You could see thousands per minute headed up the Swan

[waksupi]

I was not aware they had been able to re-establish the Kokanee population to any signifigant level since it crashed in the mid 80's or so. Know they poured frye into to lake for lots of years with not much results. One year we lived rigth at the mouth of the Swan on Flathead lake. The whitefish run was incredible that year - You could see thousands per minute headed up the Swan

They are still pouring salmon into the lakes. When I worked for the hatchery, we were taking around 20 million eggs a year. Some were traded to other states, most were planted in Montana. I suspect the bull trout and macks are eating them up as fast as they are dumped in. They need to stock them at different points on the lake, to give them a chance.
There are some lakes with a decent population yet. Koocanusa, Lake Mary Ronan, Holter Reservoir come to mind. I'm sure the F&G will continue managing them until they have completely disappeared. They are doing their damndest to kill all the lake trout in the drainage. They did a pretty good job of it on the bull trout.

[square butte]

Did you work up at the Creston hatchery? I lived not to far away up on Foothill Rd. Yep - Leave to F & G to screw up a good thing. Bull Trout up on th North Fork used to be not to bad in a few holes along about the Big creek area. We'll Montana is a way better place for wildlife than most of the rest of the US.

[waksupi]

Did you work up at the Creston hatchery? I lived not to far away up on Foothill Rd. Yep - Leave to F & G to screw up a good thing. Bull Trout up on th North Fork used to be not to bad in a few holes along about the Big creek area. We'll Montana is a way better place for wildlife than most of the rest of the US.

I worked the Flathead Lake hatchery. I live about a mile west of there. When I was working there, unofficial policy of the biologists,was to kill all the spawning bull trout they could find up the North Fork. They wanted to make it a cutthroat fishery back then, since they are dumb fish the tourists could catch. They need to leave things alone, we don't care what kind of fish we catch, we just want some food. The fish and the game would do just fine without so much government management, like in anything else.

[MtGun44]

Less government is better government, in all things.

Bill

[LAcaster]

Thanks for shareing, I don't think theres much better than fall in the mountains

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Waksupi,
if that's yer whitefish hole we may have met before :-)
I've caught some off that bridge & they are in there on & off now, someone got about 10 there the other day.

[waksupi]

Jim, I was looking at possibilities of launching my rowboat to get under the bridge to fish. Looks like over on Peterson's is the only launch, and not a good one at that. The state launch is a joke, with the gravel bar washed in like it is.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

There was a canoe in there last night, and one guy uses one of those little Coleman Crawdad plastic boats with an electric motor. Launching a boat under the bridge should not be an issue unless its huge. My friend launched his 15' w/45 hp under there all last winter.
I've fished off the bridge, but dont have my own elevator yet, need to remedy that