Angler incentive funding remains solid

SANDPOINT — The Idaho Department of Fish & Game and Avista are shooting down a rumor that funding for the Angler Incentive Program on Lake Pend Oreille is drying up.

“The AIP’s not going away,” said Chip Corsi, Idaho Fish & Game’s Panhandle region supervisor.

Funding for the program, which offers a $15 reward for each harvested lake and rainbow trout, is locked in for 2009 and Avista officials expect the program to continue beyond that.

“Based upon everything that’s happened to date, there’s no reason why the project wouldn’t be funded in the future if Idaho Fish & Game decides to pursue it and it’s still effective,” said Tim Swant, Avista’s Clark Fork license manager.

Avista provides funding for the program through its license agreement for the Cabinet Gorge Dam on the Clark Fork River. The incentive program is meant to ease predator pressure on the lake’s kokanee population, which is in danger of collapse.

Contrary to the funding loss rumor, the Lake Pend Oreille Fishery Task Force is contemplating boosting the incentive for rainbow trout harvest, which Corsi said is lagging behind the lake trout harvest.

In 2007, more than 8,000 rainbow trout were harvested, Corsi said. That number fell to fewer than 5,000 in 2008.

“We don’t have a great indication that’s a result of a decline in the rainbow population. Rather, it looks like our exploitation rate on rainbow is pretty modest and not something that would cause the population to go through a decline,” said Corsi.

The task force is considering injecting some rainbow with passive integrated transponder tags that would correspond with a cash reward. The PIT tags, which are about the size of a grain of rice, would also provide a clearer picture of the exploitation rate.

“What the group seemed interested in was — and it would actually allow us to get some good data — to put tags in some as-yet-to-be-determined number of rainbow trout, release them alive and treat them basically as a lottery ticket,” said Corsi.

 However, the task force has not made a decision on the PIT tag program.

“It’s an idea that’s starting to move into formation, but it’s barely got a dotted line around the edge,” Corsi said.