Fish aren't surviving in Henrys Lake, looks to be a 'very bad season' - East Idaho News
Living the Wild Life

Fish aren’t surviving in Henrys Lake, looks to be a ‘very bad season’

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Fishermen are an interesting lot to interview, especially when most of them just spent two or three days getting skunked on Henrys Lake on the opening weekend.

Most of the comments are so colorful they cannot be included in this column, but I appreciated the candor and honesty that came from Dan Garren, the Upper Snake River regional fisheries manager.

“I was mortified with what I saw,” Garren said. “It is going to be a tough year. We are stocking enough fish to have excellent fishing, but they are not surviving. It is not a good situation and it is looking like we will have a very bad season.”

Those of us who have spent a lot of time on the famed lake, quietly discussed that this would be a disastrous season after the gill net numbers came out. Remember the goal for the Department of Fish and Game is 11 fish per net per night. Three years ago it was eight, 2017 it was 5.5 and this spring it was about 4.3.

“On Saturday I checked 100 boats that came off the water at the dock here,” Bud Hillman, manager of the Frome County boat dock, said. “Of the 100 boats there were only eight fish caught, but one was a 12-pounder and one was six and a half pound. Most of the boats were leaving by 10 a.m. because they could not get catch anything.”

By noon Monday, the lake had only a few boats still fishing when I tried finding fishermen to visit with. I interviewed people from 11 boats; all had been skunked; not a single fish had been caught. Some were mad, others were shocked and all had their own theory of why the fishing was so terrible. The reasons varied from ice fishing, the opening coincided with millions of snowflies hatching, chubs are taking over the lake, a winter kill, sterilization of hybrids and brook trout and of course, 10 reasons why the Fish and Game should be blamed.

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“I don’t know what the problem is but I will guarantee that we will find out as it has become a very big deal for us,” said Garren Tuesday morning. “I believe it is environmental and the blue/green algae blooms the last few years are symbolic of what might be the problem. I think it is water quality issues and if it continues we are going to be dead in the water.”

Garren is positive that ice fishing, the snowfly hatch and chubs are not the reason for the slow fishing this past weekend. He indicated to me that the chub numbers have also declined the last two seasons and a quick fix might be to increase stocking numbers.

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“If we increase stocking, the size will decrease but we will have to do what needs to be done to turn things around,” Garren said. “In all of our information meetings fishermen tell us they want big fish but last year when we had big fish, only about 12 boats daily showed up while in 2003 when we had a lot of smaller fish we got a lot of complaints but lake was full of fishermen.”

When you hear about the “good old days” not all of them were good, but there may be something to learn from them. After dismal years in 1980 and 1981 when fishermen had to fish for five hours to catch a fish, the stocking of cutthroats went from about one million to over two million per year from 1981 until 1984. Catch rates ballooned from .21 fish per hour to 1.27 per hour but the average fish size decreased from about 17 inches to near 16 inches.

Surveys said fishermen wanted larger fish but the fishing pressure went from 63,273 angler hours in 1982 to 125,666 in 1985 when the stocking program dropped the cutthroat numbers to one million again.

Another interesting note is the number of fish running into the hatchery at Henys Lake. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s about 2500 to 4000 would run into the hatchery during the spawning period. Those numbers increased to 9,000 to 17,000 in the late 1980’s. In 2016 only 2200 were counted at the hatchery with 3300 in 2017.

I am not maintaining these things are the answer to the Henrys Lake problems; but they could be. My prayers and hopes are with Garren and the rest of the Fish and Game to find the answer as I am now in my 70’s and would love to have a few more great seasons on “ol’ Hanks Pond.

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