I found myself early this morning sitting on flat water of 44 degrees on the West end of Spectacle Lake. CONDITIONS PERFECT! The swallows were swooping everywhere on the shoal and chironomids were coming up by the thousands. My fishinbuddy scope showed fish moving constantly. Having a large selection of chronie imitations and the know how to fish them my expectations were sky high.
Four hours later......and thoroughly skunked, I left in disgust. I never thought it could happen.

Went and talked to a friend nearby who knows the lake. Seems that the lake is polluted with smallmouth bass and a zillion bluegills of 3" size.
WDFG has failed to rehab the lake in many many years and he sez the fry plants do not survive
now.
As long as we accept the present bent by WDFG to write off certain lakes as so called spiney ray havens we will have.......you guessed it. Crummier and crummier fishing.

I feel for you. There are so many lakes that have stunted spiny rays. Fio Rito over by Ellensburg is terrible. There are so many largemouth bass 4 inches long you can catch hundreds in a day. Last year I caught about 30 in an hour.

Were as the Quincy Seep Lakes never seamed to put out the bigger trout they used to, after they were rehabilitated.

Almost a no win situation either way.

I think regulations with the chemicals used also hampers the problem.

i say we knock off the bass limit...but keep a slot regulation. make it be that there's no limit on those critters, but only 5 that are within the current slot(13-15"???)

some of the lakes i fished last year were incredibly full of bass, but there's such a stigma to keeping them now(much like a wild steelhead) that nobody does anymore

Well chum man the drift I get is that unless you have a controlled farm pond situation there is NO WAY to keep spiney ray infested lakes in balance. The theory is to balance the predator Smallmouth,largemouth,walleye etc. with the food base, ie. the spineys like bluegill, crappies,sunfish. Well it just don't work. Regardless of slot limits etc. The lake becomes out of balance and NO ONE likes to fish the results.

It is in my humble opinion partly the problem that our lakes are NOT suitable in food base for spiney rays or bass,walleye. Sure there exceptions mainly the large resivors with many species for preditors to eat. BUT by and large out small lakes are only suited in food base for TROUT.
Those that insist on polluting them with spineys need to go home to Arkansas,Texas,Georga or wherever where the lakes are suitable for their fav. fishes.

Our Dept . of F&G knows how to stop this ruinous practice by the bucket brigade. In fact they did it once but failed to stick to their guns.

You just make in illegal to fish for or possess spiney rays on the lake (after rehabing it and planting trout.) It then becomes useless for the spiney lovers to recorrupt the water with their junk fish.
In the present complaints case, I suspect the cut to the bone budgets and our F&G leaders ban for 3 years on useage of Rotenone has left Spectacle the Spectac le it is right now.

personally i'd rather catch a bucket full of perch or bluegill than a couple measly trout. there are quite a few lakes that are full of stunted fish

i really think wdfw should start planting tiger muskies more places, and make it catch and release on them in lakes that are really packed with stunted fish so the tigers will prey on them while providing some great sport fishing. kind of win-win, the tigers get fat on stunted fish, and the rest of the spineys get big and tasty

In the words of my personal life coach, "Can't we all just get along?"

Isn't there room for bass, perch, walleye, crappie, bluegill, carp, catfish, peamouth chubs, lake whitefish and trout? Where does the madness end? Better be careful befor the NAACP (national association for the advancement of catchable pisces) gets wind of your statements.

Being born at the end of February, I am somewhat offended by your statements.

Andy

Well Dogfish, since you had to ask the question, you'll probably be immune to the answer, but OK, here goes anyhow.

NO there is not room for alla the fishes and NO we will not ever get along if backroom biologists continue ruining potentially good trout fisheries by dumping panfish in wherever they feel they want to fish em.

This state has some great water managed for spiney rays and I have no qualms about most of it.
So yes there is room and yes it's there for you if you settle for being in the minority and having to travel a little to reach it..

But WHY do you have to have it all by polluting very fine trout managed lakes with your little spiney friends.

The biologists in our F&G are attempting to manage these lakes for trout because the ecology is best for that and most Washington fishermen WANT good trout fishing.

When Spiney lovers get greedy it costs everyone much money rehabing the lake or else like Spectacle the cost is crummy fishing for a smattering of smallmouth and a million 3-4" bluegill only kids are pleased to catch.

You had to ask didn't you.....well now you know!

Something for thought also, spiney rays are transplanted by various waterfowl. I've talked to game agents that have said coots, commerants and other fish ducks spread the eggs of perch and sunfish all over the place.

Lake Lenice was a classic example, 2 years ago the sunfish were thick in there. Caught one trout that spit out a small pumpkinseed and they were all over the shallows.

Tough issue solve. One thing I think is really a problem is the amount of weeds that have gotten out of hand in a lot of lakes. These weeds are a spiney rays best friend

Something I just saw off the Mardon Resort Website. Take with a grain of salt, Things always seem more optimistic than reality.

FRENCHMAN'S WASTEWAY
Yakima residents Jackie and Mike Gaudette trolled between the mouth of Frenchman's and Blythe Point boat launch with plugs. They hooked 10 smallmouth to 5 lb. 8 oz. They had their best smallmouth day so far but it's early in the season.

Darleen Maahs of Federal Way fished the mouth of Frenchman's with crawlers where she caught a 10 lb. channel catfish and a 5 lb. 8 oz. smallmouth bass.

Sorry placed reply in wrong place. Still recovering from Vegas trip

Well, IC Fish, I've spoken extensively with several biologists about the Spiney ray problem and never has one accused waterfoul of commomly spreading viable fish eggs around. Who did you talk to???
The only thing I ever heard them speak of waterfoul spreading around is leeches which attach to their feet frequently.

There IS one problem with Rotenone treatment they mention for a few lakes, and it involves the weeds and reeds you mentioned. The spiney fry are often way back in weeedy, reedy shoreline areas in shallow water to escape predators. The Rotenone will not completely penetrate such areas so there is escapement,which repopulates the lake in a matter of 3-4 years.Nunnally and the sunfish is one such example.

This is the uncommon problem compared to the problem of Spiney lovers dumping their buckets.
Spectale Lake is one such prime example.