The March Opener is fast approaching. Is anyone heading over to Dusty Lake in the Quincy Lakes Wildlife Area? This used to be a great lake for rainbows and big browns, though it's gone downhill lately.

Did anyone hear whether or not it's been treated and restocked? It would be nice to fish there again (with a good chance of success).

JK

You can check the latest stocking info HERE .

As you will see in the plant record, Dusty is stlll on the proposed list for yearly
RB plant and that means it may or may not have been planted last year with fry RB.
The Department list of lakes to be Rehabed last fall waz MEAGER and Dusty waz
not on the list I saw.
I expect it will fish veeeery poorly this coming year.....a casualty of our F&G Directors
ban on Rotenone use. A huge backlog of lakes needing Rehab now exists. And the F&G
Budget will get whacked of course in these hard times.
According to last falls list, Lower Ancient waz the only one scheduled for Rehab
in that area.

FF, I have a question... what is the difference between keeping ONE fish and killing them all? You're for rotenone but against keeping fish?

I dont understand. I'm not really trying to start anything, just trying to see exactly where you stand.

Personally, if I'm in the mood for fish, I'm gonna keep it, and I have no problem with the rotenone either, if it is going for a better fishery.

Personally I'm not against keeping fish at all. What I'm 100% against is
managing 99% of all our lakes for a meat fishery. Doing this sacrifices
the essence of the activity which is SPORT. It keeps everyone focused on
Killing 5 fish as a measure of success.
As a 99% management tool it is expensive to the max compared to managing
a Quality catch and release lake. Thus for our fishing money we get less and
less each year for more and more expense.
Additionally bait fishing seems to promote garbage littering and a Bubba
mindset I don't see in the crowd that fishes for sport alone. They RESPECT
the resource rather than viewing it as a place to get free meat and leave
their beer bottles.
We have had few additions to the quality lake program in Washington in
the last 10 years. In Canada you will see that 40-50% of all lakes have
restricted limits and/or single barbless hook regs. In California the legislature,
recognizing that the Fisheries Dept. pandered to the baitfishing crowd at the
expense of the sport, mandated by law that one lake per year be
converted to quality regs C&R fishing. They took the option to ignore the
sport fishermen away from their Fisheries Dept.
In Washington anyone who fishes the few quality lakes we have are
seeing the trend toware more and more fishermen preferring to catch
large trout for SPORT rather than dragging home (and often giving to neighbors)
a mess of muddy tasting trout. The quality lakes are getting loved to death to
degrading the experience for the sportsman.

Dusty is one lake I know alot about. It is still schedualed for rehab that is supposed to take place in late March. It will not open March 1st with the other game range lakes.