Hey everyone!

[Rich McVey]

Yup, the Tagging subject has been interesting for sure. Never caught a tagged fish myself yet though.

Stacie, there has also been alot of talk of people stocking/transplanting fish into various waters in an attempt to increase the populations at their favorite holes.

What is the legality of this?

Also, I have been looking at lake/pond front property and some of them (lake/pond) are quite small, 10 to 20 acres or so. If I did purchase said property, who would I contact about the lake/pond to have a survey done or to get a few species planted in that body of water?

[Stacie Kelsey]

RaMcvey - It is illegal to move fish from one body of water to another. Yes, people do it, but if caught, bad news for them. And the thing is, they do get caught sometimes. What I tell people is that for the safety of your pond and the fish that might be currently in it you don't want to place fish in there not from a disease free certified grower.

Plus, there are bodies of water where we don't want specific fish to be in - especially if they could escape into any local streams/rivers. That's why the use of grass carp in the state is restricted. So definitely do not move fish from one body of water to another. If your favorite fishing hole is lacking in the species you want, talk to your local fish biologist and see what their thoughts are.

As far as a pond on your property we wouldn't do a survey but yes we could help you out on stocking your pond. You have to have a permit to stock fish even in private waters. This includes warmwater, trout and grass carp. Some areas don't allow the stocking of certain species such as sturgeon or gambusia (mosquitofish).

Basically you contact your local office and tell them you want to stock your pond. What I do from there is to send out the application and then I set up a time to do an inspection of the pond. When I go out to look at the pond I look for the following things:

1. size of the pond
2. depth of the pond
3. is the pond screened - if not, can it easily be screened - if the pond cannot be screened that is a permit denial
4. what is the flooding history if the pond is close to another body of water (stream/river/tributary) - if flooding is a serious issue that is a permit denial
5. are there fish in the pond now
6. what kind of fish does the applicant want to stock
7. what does the applicant want to do with the fish? (catch and release, catch and keep, trophy size fish or aesthetic only - just to see/feed them). This makes a difference on how many fish are stocked
8. what is the overall health of the pond? are there excessive aquatic vegetation - this can affect fish that are stocked and if there is a lot of vegetation I will suggest to the pondowner to look at grass carp for removal/control
9. are there predation issues? herons, otters, osprey - if so, I will often give a little more fish to stock, knowing that there's going to be predation or I will recommend larger size fish to help alleviate predation

Once all these questions have been answered then I will issue the permit. For trout and warmwater fish with no issues, the permit can be issued right there. I will also issue the permit that day even if screens need to be put in and will write this on the permit that screens must be in place prior to stocking fish.

For grass carp the process takes 6-8 weeks (different application and more review has to be done).

The applicant gets a list of the certified growers (you can only buy from the list I provide to you - or if you go off the list the Hatchery Program in Olympia has to get a three year disease free history from the grower you want to use).

It looks like a long process but the pond inspections usually take 1/2 hour to an hour.

Sorry for the novel but this is how I handle stocking in my region. Let me know if you have any questions!

stace

[BassinBomber]

Stacie,..I was wondering about the Crawdad Migration in Lake Wa and if you have any info at all on it,..I know the SMB target these Crawdads for a food source and since the Fall Bass have been so elusive I'm trying to locate the Migrating Crawdads,..any info on this would help,..THANKS!

BB

[Stacie Kelsey]

Bassin - from what I understand we haven't done specific crayfish surveys in Lake Washington but they definitely are good numbers there. While I work on finding more answers on this here is a good report on SMB and crayfish. It's for Lake Whatcom, but you might find some good info. It is a Department report.

Smallmouth Bass and Native Signal Crayfish

[Rich McVey]

Stacie: WOW, Thanks. Much more good info than I was expecting and you brought up things I had not considered. THANK YOU!

[Stacie Kelsey]

No problem!

[BassinBomber]

Bassin - from what I understand we haven't done specific crayfish surveys in Lake Washington but they definitely are good numbers there. While I work on finding more answers on this here is a good report on SMB and crayfish. It's for Lake Whatcom, but you might find some good info. It is a Department report.

Smallmouth Bass and Native Signal Crayfish

TY Stace,..!

BB

[Stacie Kelsey]

your welcome!

[YellowBear]

I found this to be a interesting read.

http://www.nwcouncil.org/library/isrp/i ... dendum.htm

[Stacie Kelsey]

Huh, that is interesting. I haven't been able to reach the warmwater guy - he's on annual leave. But it sounds like there are projects trying to get going to help with the panfish populations, which is good!

[YellowBear]

Good morning Stacie.
Other than sex, age and over all health of the fish.
What are we learning from the FWIN studies?

[kevinb]

Stacie,

First off.I would like thank you for all the great information,we all appreciate it very much.
I have tons of questions but one I've been curious about, How does someone make an inquiry about the
possibility of making some seasonal lakes into year-round? I have a few lakes I would like to see year-round but the
lake I'd like to see the most is Tanwax in Pierce County.

Thanks again
Kevin

[Stacie Kelsey]

Hi Kevin!

Usually what happens is you need to make request using the Regulation Change Form during an open cycle. Currently we are in a minor cycle and Oly isn't accepting anything new from the public. However, next May will be the major cycle for reg changes so you can submit something at time.

What I would suggest to you though is to talk to the biologist that works with that lake (if you don't know who it is let me know and I'll find out for you). Ask them about the management of the lake. Some lakes are seasonal for specific reasons and some are not.

We had a seasonal lake here a few years back that some people decided they wanted to be year round. They got over 200 signatures of people that wanted to see that lake become year round. There were no management issues to keep it seasonal so at the next reg cycle we opened it to year round.

So, it could be as easy as that, or, if there are management concerns then it wouldn't be possible. But talk to your local bio and they will let you know more about that lake.

Let me know if I can help any more!

stace

[Stacie Kelsey]

Yellowbear - I'm still trying to get ahold of the warmwater guy over there so hopefully I can get in contact with him and get some more info for you. By getting just the basic data you can really learn a lot about the population in the lake. You can compare the bio data on a statewide level and an overal nationwide level - how do these fish compare statewide? Are they doing better or worse? If worse, why?

Based on what seems like just a little bit of data, you can figure out the health of the population and then either work to enhance it or leave it as it is.

I'll keep working on this for you!

stace

[YellowBear]

Thank you Stacie.

[kevinb]

Hi Kevin!

Usually what happens is you need to make request using the Regulation Change Form during an open cycle. Currently we are in a minor cycle and Oly isn't accepting anything new from the public. However, next May will be the major cycle for reg changes so you can submit something at time.

What I would suggest to you though is to talk to the biologist that works with that lake (if you don't know who it is let me know and I'll find out for you). Ask them about the management of the lake. Some lakes are seasonal for specific reasons and some are not.

We had a seasonal lake here a few years back that some people decided they wanted to be year round. They got over 200 signatures of people that wanted to see that lake become year round. There were no management issues to keep it seasonal so at the next reg cycle we opened it to year round.

So, it could be as easy as that, or, if there are management concerns then it wouldn't be possible. But talk to your local bio and they will let you know more about that lake.

Let me know if I can help any more!

stace

Thank you Stacie

I know of a few WDFW biologists but not for the Lake Tanwax area of Pierce County.
If you wouldn't mind giving me his/her name or just putting a bug in their ear to the idea.

I was talking with a WDFW biologist a few months back and as I understand,their will be a study of the northern pike
in the Pend Oreille River this spring or summer. Is it possible to observe any of this? I'm an avid pike angler and not opposed
the the study,just curious to see what they get out of there. Maybe I can learn something new too. Maybe,...lol

Thanks again

[YellowBear]

Good morning Stacie.

You mentioned earlier that there were some projects planed for Panfish.
Could you tell me what these plans might be?

Thank you.

[Stacie Kelsey]

Down in my area we are going to look at what the abundance and distribution for panfish is and then look to see if there is need to enhance those. Silver Lake is a great panfish lake and we have some other lakes like Lacamas where there used to be a great yellow perch population and Rowland Lake which has been known as a very nice bluegill lake.

So based on what our surveys that we will do next year shows us, we can look toward better warmwater management of those lakes.

I'm sure that other regions have warmwater projects/ideas but I am not privy to those.

So far I'm having no luck with contact someone about your original question but I am still plugging away at it.

[YellowBear]

I have talked with quite a few folks in this area about the numbers of Cormorants and Pelicans.
This year we saw a noticeable drop in the population of both.
We also noticed a drop in the numbers and size of fish that we are catching.
Our conclusion for this is a lack of food but perhaps the WDFW could shed a bit of light on there thoughts for the decline.

I also would like to know why it is that the WDFW does not work together?
Does each region have its own agenda? and if so, why?

As far as the information about Sprague lake goes, here is what I have to date.
It was reported that the WDFW held 20,000 small Crappie at the Meesberg hatchery ( 10% of capacity for this facility) to be restocked back to Sprague.
If this is true, what are the chance's that any will survive the winter with all those Trout that were also stocked?
Now some might say that Trout are no threat but Trout are just as much of a predator as anything else.



Thanks for your time.

[Stacie Kelsey]

No decline in cormorants sadly. Not sure what you guys are seeing over your way though.

As far as WDFW working together, I'm not sure I understand your question. Each Region is different in some ways and the same in others. We try to manage per the requirements of the areas. Our west side lakes can differ in management from the east side lakes. We want to try and manage for a good healthy population that can be fished on by the public. We try to enhance fishing opportunity by stocking trout during various times of the year.

But it all falls back to money.

I've seen trout that prey on other trout species. I don't really know the answer to that question but I know someone who should. I'd imagine that there would be some loss of the crappie to predators of any sort.

We were worried on predation of juvenile channel catfish in one of our lakes so I had the size increased to give them more a chance to grow into some nice fish and boy did they do just that.

There may be some sort of understanding that a certain percent of the fish stocked will be lost. We are dealing with this in a very nasty way right now with the cormorants that likely eat over HALF of our trout stockings at our various lakes.

So, we are looking at growing larger, but fewer trout to hopefully avoid that. It's tricky though.

I'm gonna try and get some answers!