Northwest Fishing Reports

Hi,

I'm new to the area and have been fishing West Medical lake for the last year. My wife swears that the trout that come out of that lake (almost all rainbows) taste different or weird. Supposedly, their is a Psych Hospital right next to it that years ago was dumping all their waste into West Medical...Can anybody confirm this? Has anybody else had a similiar experience?

Me and my kid caught many fish their yesterday trolling on the lake. I hate to have to not go their any more cuz the fish is tainted. If anybody can shed some light on this situation I would appreciate it!

Mike:dj:

if there was a

Psych Hospital right next to it that years ago was dumping all their waste into West Medical...Can anybody confirm this?

then I cannot see how it would affect the taste of the fish most likely your fish would just be highly polluted and you cannot taste pollution. the funky taste could be something they are feeding on. you could try catch and release.

just my 2 cents

o yeah! welcome to the forum

I work in th evicinity of the lake there, but not at the hospital. I have heard those same rumors that you are commenting of from all of my co-workers. I have never kept anything I have caught there, practiced catch and release instead, but it is an awesome fishing area if you are in a boat.

Medical Lake

The lake was used for medicinal purposes long ago. It was known for it's high mineral content. There used to be a electric train that ran from Spokane and vicinity to the lake. I don't remember the details but there are books in your local library on the history of Spokane and the lake. I would think that this would be the reason the trout taste differently than in other places. It used to be quite a popular destination, and the old photos of it are really neat.

Rob1

West Medical has a very high nitrogen content in the lake. This is because of the waste water that was dumped in the lake for many years and also the fertilizer runoff from the near by fields. The treatment facility is now closed and has been for about a decade. With the high nitrogen level, weeds and algae grow very fast. Lakes that have this environment produce fish that taste "weedy or muddy".

The lake prior to closing the waste water treatment plant from the hospital, had be closed off to the public for high fecal e.coli content. The state closed the treatment plant and relocated it. I don't know what the latest lab results are, but I believe that the situation has improve quite a bit since the closure. The ecosystem of the lake will take decades to get back to normal, if it ever does. This will only happen if they quite fertilizing the fields around the lake also.

I am not a biologist, but have read some reports done in the past by the Dept. of Ecology.

Are the fish safe to eat, I don't know. I do know that they have that muddy taste. Check with the Department of Game or the Department of Ecology. They may have some current studies on the lake.

You might try fishing Silver, Williams or Badger. The water is much cleaner in those lakes.

I havent fished the lake personally, but I have found that trout in some lakes which are feeding on Chironomid larvae (AKA blood worms) on the bottom of the lake can taste "muddy".

OK.... the biology part........... Chironomids (or midges -Diptera) live in the bottom of lakes. As larvae grow, they excavate a small vertical hole in the lake floor. The larvae have a red color as they grow in the "silty' bottom (AKA "blood worms"). As they grow, they eventually pollute the cavity they live in and then crawl (not really crawl ... they have no legs) out and then excavate another cavity to grow in. Eventually, thay will emerge from the floor cavity and wiggle, convulse and squirm their way to the lake surface where they will emerge as adults. They are not mosquitoes.............. they have no "proboscus" or the part that sucks your blood as a mosquitoe does. Ok ... ok .... I'll quit.


This muddy or silty quality to the flesh is a by-factor in that the fish injest some of the silt on the lakes floor. This silt/mud is then stored by the fishes digestion system in the fatty layer between the flesh and the skin. If you cook the fish, and peel the skin back you can see this fatty layer as a grey veneer over the flesh. I have heard that if you freeze the fish first the muddy taste disappears (I've never tried it to be honest). I have in the past cooked the fish, removed the skin after the fish is cooked, then removed the grey layer. This removal of the "fatty layer" usually eliminates the "muddy taste".


Just my $0.02 worth.................

To be honest with you, I have never eaten a fish from Medical Lake, but I too have caught my share and heard the stories.

If a high nitrogen content is the cause, then the fish should not taste muddy until later in the spring. The first of the season should be just fine. Even then, I have eaten fish out of lakes that had far more nitrogen in them then Medical, with faster weed growth, and they were just fine. I would suggest that this is not the cause.

It could be the minerals. I have heard people say the fish in Lenore have a funny taste, and it is quite alkaline, so this may be the cause.

Eating blood worms??????????????? Maybe, just maybe. I know of a lake in Colorado, Spinney Mountain Lake, that has so many fresh water shrimp (scuds) that no only do the fish taste strange, but they smell bad as well. The fish grow like weeds on fertilizer, and I the only way to keep me from fishing it was to make me move from the state, but the fish ate nothing but scuds and you could see, smell, and taste the difference.

I did research the "safety" of eating the fish from Medical Lake when friends told me about it, about 9 years ago. As I understand it, the State has determined that they are just fine. Considering that the state has warned us about almost every lake, I suggest that if you don't mind the taste, they will be OK - but I would still eat in moderation.

I eat trout from West Medical, but I immediately clean my fish and put them on ice ASAP. I smoke or BBQ my trout. Also, I don't fish the lake once the annual algae bloom occurs.

As to the health of the lake, I am observing pond turtles and frogs this Spring; both cannot tolerate heavily polluted waters.

The trout may very well be OK to eat from W. Medical, but just wait until we have a sustained period of warm weather. As T-Bone mentioned, you'll see slime, weeds, and floating neon green blobs of something that you won't see in any other e. Washington lakes! Ditto for that horrible, sickening smell!!! I kid you not! Clean water or not by state standards, I wouldn't eat them. And I've noticed that it is always 3-5 degrees warmer than other local lakes...it just heats up quicker.

They sure are strong, acrobatic and fun to catch, though. And the lake is always a good "go-to" lake when fishing time is short.

I wonder if the fish tasting bad may be a sweet spot! If no one eats them (because they taste bad) the trout may get to good sizes and the result will be a great C&R lake with big trout?

raffensg64 wrote:The trout may very well be OK to eat from W. Medical, but just wait until we have a sustained period of warm weather. As T-Bone mentioned, you'll see slime, weeds, and floating neon green blobs of something that you won't see in any other e. Washington lakes! Ditto for that horrible, sickening smell!!! I kid you not! Clean water or not by state standards, I wouldn't eat them. And I've noticed that it is always 3-5 degrees warmer than other local lakes...it just heats up quicker.

They sure are strong, acrobatic and fun to catch, though. And the lake is always a good "go-to" lake when fishing time is short.

Think Sprague Lake, the slime, weeds, and floating neon green blobs of algae there make West Medical look clean.

Still, like W. Medical, it get pretty hot. And still, the State has killed it out and planted trout again. So, perhaps your on to something. Temperature may be a contributing factor, but only later in the season.

Marc Martyn wrote:West Medical has a very high nitrogen content in the lake. This is because of the waste water that was dumped in the lake for many years and also the fertilizer runoff from the near by fields. The treatment facility is now closed and has been for about a decade. With the high nitrogen level, weeds and algae grow very fast. Lakes that have this environment produce fish that taste "weedy or muddy".

The lake prior to closing the waste water treatment plant from the hospital, had be closed off to the public for high fecal e.coli content. The state closed the treatment plant and relocated it. I don't know what the latest lab results are, but I believe that the situation has improve quite a bit since the closure. The ecosystem of the lake will take decades to get back to normal, if it ever does. This will only happen if they quite fertilizing the fields around the lake also.

I am not a biologist, but have read some reports done in the past by the Dept. of Ecology.

Are the fish safe to eat, I don't know. I do know that they have that muddy taste. Check with the Department of Game or the Department of Ecology. They may have some current studies on the lake.

You might try fishing Silver, Williams or Badger. The water is much cleaner in those lakes.

Yeah I noticed the slope of the hills nearby, would be easily for the fertilizer to wash down into the lake

Sprague's funky too, huh? I've never fished it...too big for my "puddle jumper" pontoon. And make no mistake, gentlemen, W. Medical is a classic "put and take" lake, stocked specifically so people can kill their limit vs. limiting their kill. It gets over 200,000 fish a year, mostly fry, and is able to absorb the pressure and keep on going.

I did battle there for 14-15 minutes with a monster 24" brown a couple weeks ago. He was incredibly fat and strong, putting up that usual straight down, cinder block type fight. Upon releasing it, folks in a boat near me uttered all kinds of oath and "I can't believe its". Little do they know that a fish that old, that big, has enough contamination to make the Chinese proud (don't freak out on me, fellas, my wife's Chinese/Thai and would tell you the same thing!).

It's on the downhill slope, though, in my opinion, and will probably be killed off soon and started anew. I live only a few miles from it and fish it a lot, and have watched the average size decrease dramatically in the past few years. My partners and I used to catch all kinds of 17-22" rainbows there, now it's all we can do to get one in ten that exceeds 16". And the bluegill and sunfish population is taking off, something the state will have to eventually fix.

SOMETIMES fish taste bad if not cleaned properly. Don't let them dry out on a stringer all day then take them home and expect good meat. I learned this the hard way as a child. FISH ON!!!:cyclopsan

This 1992 report by the Dept. Of Ecology is the latest report as far as I know.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/92e63.pdf

Marc Martyn wrote:This 1992 report by the Dept. Of Ecology is the latest report as far as I know.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/92e63.pdf

Very interesting article Marc, and like most academic articles, it allows us to take from it what we want.

This what I took from it.

The lake in 1992 was full of nutrients, and they are self recycling. What is in there now will always be in there, mostly because the lake has no outlet to drain it off.

The lake should be suffering from oxygen deprivation, and friends that fished it in the mid 1990's told me that if you caught a fish it would die as soon as the fish was landed. This sounds very much like they were right on. I have not observed this in the last few years. Has anyone else?

The lake required the use of an aerator. I do not recall seeing an aerator on the lake. Is there one now?

Marc, what did you take from the article? What stood out in your mind?

Everyone else, I'd love to have your input as well.