Get hooked on spring derby
SANDPOINT — The Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club is looking to burnish the lake’s reputation as a trophy rainbow trout fishery as it gears up for its 68th annual spring derby.
The derby kicks off on Friday at the Sandpoint Elks Lodge in Ponderay with the club’s pin auction fundraiser. Pre-bidding begins at 6 p.m. and the auction starts at 7 p.m.
Derby angling starts on Saturday and concludes on Sunday, May 5.
“With the reopening of the kokanee fishery and the rules changes on rainbow harvest, it looks like this will be a great year for the lake,” said LPOIC President Ross Milliken.
Highlighting the event is a total purse of $15,000 in cash and prizes.
Cash prizes ranging from $2,500 to $500 will be up for grabs in the adult rainbow trout competition. There’s also a $2,000 cash bonus that will be divided among club members who place in the top five slots of the adult rainbow trout category.
Cash prizes in the Mackinaw competition range from $1,500 to $250. Two thousand dollars of the lake trout purse is funded by Avista to keep pressure on Pend Oreille’s Mackinaw population.
There will also be a $250 Fish of the Day award ($150 cash and $100 Cabela’s gift card) for the biggest lake trout or rainbow trout on each day of the derby. A $100 Cabela’s gift card will be awarded for the large German brown trout and there’s a $100 prize the winner of the derby’s photo contest.
There’s also a $250 bonus prize for the largest Mac or rainbow caught by a purchaser at Friday’s pin auction.
LPOIC board member James Mullen said this year’s prize purse was enhanced to increase the event’s drawing power among anglers.
“We’ve bumped up the money to try and bring in more people,” said Mullen.
For the first time since 2000, anglers are allowed to keep up to six kokanee a day thanks to an aggressive program to reduce trout populations so the landlocked salmonids could recover. A $15-per-fish bounty remains in place for Mackinaw, although the bounty has been removed for rainbow trout.
Some fishermen contend the angler incentive program, particularly as it related to rainbows, dulled some of Lake Pend Oreille’s luster.
But the nonprofit LPOIC aims to restore the trophy rainbow fishery by purchasing 10,000 pure strain Gerrard rainbow trout eggs from the Kootenay Hatchery in British Columbia. The Idaho Department of Fish & Game is securing the permits to import them into the U.S. and will rear the eggs at its hatchery.
The club opted to purchase the eggs because the Kootenay Hatchery is ending its egg program in 2014.
“Knowing that the opportunity to reintroduce pure strain Gerrards was coming to an end, the LPOIC board of directors felt it was imperative that we take the opportunity to purchase 10,000 eggs in 2014,” said Milliken.
The 20,000 eggs will cost LPOIC about $10,000 and the group has established a dedicated account to collect donations.
“We’re trying to help get the lake established back to what it once was,” said Mullen.
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Donations sought
SANDPOINT — The Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club is accepting donations to reintroduce pure-strain Gerrard rainbow trout in the lake.
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to the LPOIC Gerrard Reintroduction Fund, P.O. Box 1589, Sandpoint, ID. 83864.