Chris Penne and Paul Thompson, with the Division of Wildlife Resources, it’s a job to get up here. Tell everyone where we are at. We are at Lost Creek Reservoir. It is a challenge to get up here. The last couple of miles they don’t plow very frequently, but they do periodically through the winter. You’ve got to be prepared with a good truck in order to get up here.
What are we going after Chris? We are going after trout, specifically rainbow trout and cutthroat trout. We also have the chance for some splake and tigers in this lake. Cool let’s go get on the reservoir. Let’s do it.
(Paul Thompson, DWR Northern Region Aquatics Program Manager) You can find Lost Creek Reservoir off of Interstate 84 at the Croydon exit. If you just follow that road up to the end you are going to see Lost Creek Reservoir.
oday we brought some four wheelers. We’ve come up to the inlet area where we are in search of some larger cutthroat trout.
(Paul Thompson, DWR Northern Region Aquatics Program Manager) There is very little pressure up here. We did a creel a couple of years ago and there is really not a lot of people that use this reservoir and especially in the winter during the ice season. If you come up here and you might be the only one here. Your group for the day or only one or two other groups. It could handle a lot more pressure than it is recieving right now. (adam) and that’s appealing for a lot of people. It is, get away from people, come up, have the reservoir to yourself. Do a little walk and you can be all by yourself and these fish have not been fished yet where we are at today.
Not a big guy, but a fish.
There’s a lot bigger fish in here and there’s a slot limit so. I’m not sure I can keep him. I don’t think I can. We’ll find out, lets go ask Chris.
(Chris Penne, N Region Assistant aquatics program manager) This is what we call a predator management water. A few years ago we changed the regulation to a slot limit, where both rainbow trout and cutthroat trout are protected from 15-22 inches in length.
(fish out of hole) Oh he jumped out of the hole. Now that’s in the slot I’m guessing. Yeah let’s get a tape on it.
(Chris Penne) You can keep fish under 15 inches or above 22. You can keep 3 under 15 or one over 22 inches.
So he’s at 14 and three quarters. so he’s under 15 so Adam we can keep that one.
We’ve actually had a lot of encouraging words from anglers on that one, so it’s a little bit different than Strawberry or Scofield, the rainbows are protected but it seems to be a neat one, because we are seeing some really large fish come out of here.
(cutt coming backwards up hole) need help? Maybe. (laughs) Little bit nicer fish. Not as nice as I was hoping.
Nice beautiful fish. Looks like this guy is starting to put on a little weight. That means he’s starting to eat a few of those chubs as forage and he’s obviously in that slot so we are going to turn him loose. But good fish non the less, in shallow. (fish release) There we go.
How big of a fish have you seen in here? We’ve seen cutthroats upwards of 25 inches in here.
Weve seen rainbows that have been over 22 inches in length as well.
There are going to be some large tiger trout running around and one that we are excited about is we restarted a stocking program for splake in this region not to long ago. There is some splake that should be obtaining some good sizes in a few years.
One of the things that we noticed within just the first few years of that protection we had the average size of fish go up about 4 inches which is just great. One of the awesome things about these slot limits, it keeps a lot of action for these small fish.
(Adam hits fish) oh I got him!
they are aggressive but that’s just a little guy. I think we can find bigger than that.
So you’ve got kids, it will keep them interested, but you also have that trophy opportunity as well.
It’s got some shoulders!
oh that’s a nice sized fish. Yeah! oh man. (grabs fish out of hole nats) It’s a good thing I did because he just came unbuttoned. that is a beautiful cutt. Nice bear lake cutthroat right there. That’s one thing I like about this reservoir is you’ve got a good numbers of good quality sized fish, you’ve got some little ones where it can be really fast action and then you’ve got some of these just really nice fish here that look like they are within the slot, but just put up a fantastic fight. Make for a lot of fun.
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