I live about 30 miles up the east frok of the lewis river, in Washington state, and every summer i always swim, and fish in the river, and only see a total of about 5, 12 inch+ trout in the river. I always catch tons of fish that average around 8 inches. Can anyone tell me why there isnt a large amount of large fish???
Sounds like a good question for the stream doctor.
What are the creel and size limits there?
Very few coastal rivers have a resident population of big fish. they all go to the ocean and come back as BIG fish. By the way
I talked to Gary Loomis on Friday he is not in the office any more ,he is doing fish first only and working out of his house.
Rich
alright, the fish going to the ocean makes sence, but only few “large” trout make it back, and only several steelhead make it up, so i might contact gary, thanks for the replys.
are there a LOT of these little trout?? if so, sheer quantities can defeat large sizes.
there is a river near me that is extremely fertile, quite large, and one of the deeper rivers in the eastern sierra. yet, all of the fish are small, meaning 7-10". but there are a ton of them. fishing this river can be extremely fun, considering you can watch brookies fight each other to get to your fly, at times, and it doesnt even matter what the fly is. the problem is that so few people actually fish this river, and sooooo many small fish live in it, that the fish dont have the necessary nutrients to grow any larger.
now, this is a land-locked river, with no direct ocean-way available. some of these fish make it to some of the nearby lakes, but the fish in the river follow this pattern of small size and large numbers. so large are the numbers, in fact, that the CA DFG have increased daily bag and possession limits. you can now catch and keep 5 trout(any species), PLUS 10 brookies. this is one of those situations where c&r fishing is actually detrimental to the habitat. nothing could help this river more than a few extra fisherman keeping enough to feed the family on a camping trip.
the funniest part is, you can walk to this river from a major highway in less than 5 minutes, in some spots…
My understanding is that the west side rivers are mostly glacial melt which holds very little minerals, thus little plant growth and sparse insect life. I’ve heard them refered to as sterile, but I think thats a bit strong. They sure don’t hold nearly the amount of bugs as the east side creeks and rivers.
Minimal food, small stunted populations of fish.
Peter
Well some rivers may be like that, but the lewis river is full of aquatic life, i know this because ive studied aquatic insects for 2 years now, and everytime i go to the river i always look to see whats up and about.