Okanagan lake is finally starting to pick up.

If they let the Sockeye into Okanagan Lake the Rainbow Trout fishing should become world class again

Lots of nutrients, lots of feed, lots of bait fish/salmon fry, lots of large rainbows
 
sockeye in okanagan will kill the rainbow trout fishery. if you want big rainbow, feed them kokanee. rainbow chasing after a bunch of sockeye fry aren't going to add up to a whole lot of anything. look at kootenay lake - those gerrards are not powered by fry. they are powered by 2+ and 3+ kokanee. if you want to really mess up okanagan lake, just add a bunch more competition for the remaining kokanee population. sockeye fry and kokanee fry eat the same thing. and there arent enough groceries to go around. a hatchery isnt going to fix your problem either. look at where your bottlenecks are. a whole bunch more starving fry is not a recipe for success.
 
Look at Shuswap and quesnel lake they have tons if salmon fry. I think Okanagan lake can handle a much large Kokanee population. The Gerards in kootenay and arrow lakes are a different strain of trout and they do get bigger then the kamloops trout we have Okanagan lake. But Okanagan lake need something to help the trout. Also since the big schools of sockeye have started to come back through osoyoos lake the trout fishing has never been better!!
 
Sockeye in the lake = bad news for rainbow in my opinion. think maybe folks should look at the mysis shrimp blunder. that is why the rainbow have suffered the same as the gerards did in kootenay lake. the kokanee are slow to recover because of simple ecinomics. you need strong numbers of fry to end up with good numbers of mature fish. problem is the shrimp eat the same thing the fry eat. Best we keep working on the shrimp and the rest will come as a result of it . Just my opinion.

Again if anyone can find a copy of the documentary on kootenay lake and the introduction of the shrimp I would sure appreciate it and I know many of you would enjoy it and learn allot from it.
 
They have a commercial fisher for the shrimp right now on the lake there pulling 20 ton a year of those little shrimp. Mostly used in pet food and also fish food for you aquariums at home I guess. They fish in he night Time for them.
 
I heard that was being tried I did not know it was going on at that level. thanks for that info. wish they would get em all. after seeing the before mentioned documentary and learning of all the false hope that came from the short term results that showed after they put them in Kootenay lake'only to see a near collapse long term once the shrimp took over and the true results became evident. Too bad so many other lakes followed based on the early showings.

Do you happen to know how the fertilization thing has worked out?. I was curious but have had no time to research it.
 
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They fertilize in the kootenay its funded by the hydro dam company like bc hydro. As far as I know its a big success but also very expensive. I think the spawning counts they do in the river have been at a all time high for the last few years.
 
I think the addition of the Sockeye to Okanagan Lake will be a very good thing, the nutrients from the rotting salmon, will promote an enormous amount of additional feed, the salmon fry are a bonus

We must also remember that the Sockeye and the Rainbow Trout coexisted in Okanagan Lake in the past, and when I was a kid the Kokanee spawn was nearly ten times what it is today

If we really want to help the lake we should start stocking the lake with Kokanee too
 
Interesting that this discussion should come up now. The Okanagan Nation's new sockeye hatchery facility starts construction next month, on the bank of Shingle Creek in Penticton, and will be functional in a year and a bit. The intent is to build on the returns into Skaha and the Okanagan River. No plans at this time to build fish ladders for access to Okanagan Lake, although there have been reports of ocean-run sockeye finding their way into Okanagan in recent years anyway.
 
Right now the is no ladder from the river I'm to Skaha lake and it seems like lots of fish make it through the gates of the dam. From what I have heard there will not be a recreation sport fishing opening on osoyoos lake do to lower numbers.
 
Right now the is no ladder from the river I'm to Skaha lake and it seems like lots of fish make it through the gates of the dam. From what I have heard there will not be a recreation sport fishing opening on osoyoos lake do to lower numbers.

I don't understand how it can be that there is no ladder? There must be some way for the fish to get from the river into Skaha Lake because last year there was a 10 day open season for Sockeyes on Skaha.

The 10 day season on Ossoyos Lake was announced by the DFO in 2012 much to the dislike of Native bands who thought all the fish should be for them controlled by them

The reintroduction of the Columbia Sockeye to the Okanagan river/lake system is a huge undertaking (12yrs) combining several native bands, State, Provincial and Federal governments on both sides of the border, along with hydro companies and water authorities all parties involved should be applauded for their efforts.

The reintroduction is to run from 2004 through 2016 one of the objectives is to include Okanagan lake
 
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In other news, I caught and released a 16" trout yesterday while doing a short shakedown cruise to try out a different prop and see how things are running in preparation for my WCVI trips. 50' feet down on the downrigger with my new ebay Chinese lime green 180lb braid, full size green glow flasher and a green splatter coho killer. Not too sporting. Switched to light kokanee stuff when the sounder lit up and released a couple of those as well. Fished up toward McKinley.
Prop will do as a spare, smaller diameter gave two more mph, but the hole shot was poor, making me think acceleration in the swells would be compromised.
Sutherland ramp sucks even when the lake is at full pool. Almost got water in the cab.
 
Yes they get into skaha by swimming though the gates of the dam. They just built the ladder at McIntyre dam which is down stream of Vasux lake in the last 10 years. So what I'm getting at is if they can get into skaha they may also get into Okanagan lake. The channel in penticton will be pretty warm for the sockeyes.
 
The 10 day season was announced by the DFO in 2012 much to the dislike of Native bands who thought all the fish should be for them controlled by them

I am trying to find a link to verify this opening. Do you have one?

Osoyoos Lake had openings the last two years and the bands there were in full support of the recreational openings.
 
Yes but someone I know that works in this area said the numbers of fish are very low this year, the last two years have been very high last year being the highest on record. I hope I'm wrong because I was planing on be out there!
 
I am trying to find a link to verify this opening. Do you have one?

Osoyoos Lake had openings the last two years and the bands there were in full support of the recreational openings.[/QUO

I posted the wrong lake the opening was on Ossoyos lake not Shaha. I screwed my appologies to all
 
when you speak of the Bands this group is call the Nation Alliance and they have a website also. They also have some youtube videos of commercial fishing on osoyoos lake and what they do with there catch. pretty cool. Im really glad they are working on getting this fishery back!!!
 
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