was telling my girl about the bounty on squaws and now she wants to go down to give it a go.

anybody know if the bounty's still on and how & where to catch'em.

check this out at wdfw
www.wa.gov/wdfw/fish/regions/reg5/reg5-5.htm
also gi joes has some info near the fishing counter
i believe the reward is 4-6 dollars each with some tagged fish worth 50 or 100 dollars

hope this helps good luck

now why would the state tag fish that they dont want in there in the first place? i know that its says that in the regs but i cant figure out why the state does some of the things they do?

Mark recapture is a standard tool used for a variety of tasks. I'm not familiar with the sqawfish program, but it could be used for anything from population size/trends to growth rates. Obviously it would be difficult to know if the reward program is really working without some basic information. I doubt taxpayers want tax money being wasted on programs that aren't meeting their goals and objectives. I know, this particular program isn't taxpayuer funded, but if you use electricity you're paying for it.

my guess is that they tag the fish to get people after the bounty

squawfish were always fun to catch when i was younger, the fight decently. someone even told me they are great eating if prepared right

What I'd like to know is, how do you catch these buggers? I've got half a mind to gather some buddies one weekend and give it a try myself. I live north of Tacoma, so it'd be quite a drive, but it sounds like fun and has the prospect of paying for the trip down. So what and where's the best way and place to catch squawfish/northern pikeminnows from shore?

arklier,
remember me, saw you at 5 mile? well, i have caught lots of them sqawfish, most of them on night crawlers (even had one take my pole under water a few feet) i even caught them on kalins grubs, panther martin spinners, they also take shrimp, they are a opportunist type predator, they go after easy stuff, if i saw a sqawfish folling my spinner, i would slow the retrieve a bit and whammo..my biggest so far is about 19 inches...and if you want to keep you crawler off the bottom, use a syringe and pump it full of air, this may work better for sqaws , keeps it off the bottom and catch alot less suckers.. id be willing top tag along if you find a spot for catching sqaws lol...

BPA is flipping the bill for the Northern Pike minnow program not the state.

If you guys want to drive all the way down here for this make sure you bone up on the details at www.pikeminnow.org. There is a seminar on May 21 or 22 at Bob's in Longview (will say on the website). They are not easy to catch (unless you aren't fishing for them). A boat is nice to have so you can try several spots. They generally bite better and are in the shallows more during late evening or early morning.

Also I would wait until the temperature of the water is at least 57 degrees. This puts them on the spawn in about mid-June and are more actively feeding then. (Water's still cold now)

Look at the info on the website for past catching trends at different checkpoints.

hey bounty hunter

thanks for the link, it was a lot help

I ran into some of these buggers over at lk. chelan last week end.I went down to the dock just at first light and could see fish rolling and little bait fish jumping,like they were being chased.As it got lighter I couldsee some pretty good sized fish swimming in the shallows just of the dock.As it got lighter they disapeared.Before there escape I tried everything in my arsenal to catch one and they showed no interest.I guess i will have to try some night fishing this summer!