Pend Orielle River

[spadam98]

Just wondering if anyone has any updated info on water levels how the fishing is going right now on the Pend Orielle River.
Thank you

[Lucius]

Just wondering if anyone has any updated info on water levels how the fishing is going right now on the Pend Orielle River.
Thank you

Water level is low right now but it is rising. The fishing has been pretty good. I caught 1 northern and missed a few and caught 2 bass and missed a few with the 3-4 hrs of fishing I put in. I know some others have fared better. You can also check up on the river reports under the Pend Oreille River to get updates from other people as well. Good luck if you head out and don't forget to let us know how you did.

Lucius

[YJ Guide Service]

The River is the same today as it was back on the 27th of April , i keep track of the flow and elevation daily up there. The fishing is starting to get better but the weather needs to stablize. We caught and released over 70 Pike since the beggining of March. We recently fished the P.O. River on May 2nd the weather started out nice no wind and alot sun, and the fish were bitting. Then the clouds and wind came up and the fishing slowed a ton. The large mouth and small mouth are starting to bite pretty good also. Need to warn people of the area across from the Outpost Resort in the middel of the river, there is alot of rock just under the surface now that you cant see, the water around it is about 15-20ft deep so be careful if your fishing up in that area. I found it the hard way lol.... Good luck fishing everyone. Remember turn the Pike and Bass back so they can get bigger, keep the perch and crappie.....

[KUP]

Hey Craig! Thanks for the great post; good info for all of us.
So that kind of info is saved; click on"Lakes" above, then Fishing Reports, then River and enter in what you already have (cut and paste works great)
Great talking to you both yesterday; looking forward to meeting you on the 15th at the SILVER Lake Open for Tiger Muskie!!
and WELCOME to Chapter #57!!!

NICE PIKE PHOTO. Buddy is drooling.

[Lucius]

Hey Craig! Thanks for the great post]

Yes...Yes I am drooling. Hey craig, what were the specs on that little fishy?:bounce:

[spadam98]

That is a nice fish craig only 4 more days till we will be on the river!!!! I cant wait any body been there in the last week is water coming up yet. Thank you

[spadam98]

well hit the Pend Orielle River today had a great day we brought 5 pike ranging from 3 to 5 pounds and probly missed 25 more useing buzzbaits these fish are awesome to fish for. i will post a report tomorrow when i get the pics left the camera at my parents will probly hit it again on thursday and sunday.

[YJ Guide Service]

Fish in the picture was 34" and 9lbs 8 oz. Just a baby lol.... River is finally coming up slowly but is better than nothing.Will be out there on Wed for a half day trip.

[Lucius]

How did you do yesterday Craig!!

[spadam98]

i hit it a gain on wednesday and had a awesome day we caught 11 pike, 10 of them were your 3 to 5 pound fish then my motherinlaw got a 36 inch 10.5 pound one we also caught a 3.5 pound largemouth. i will post reports when i get the pics the are on my fatherinlaws camera so i will post them on sunday or monday we are going back again on sunday last time before he has to go back to Forks wa. man i wish i had a boat to go out on this river later this year pike are so much fun to catch.

[Fish-N-Fool]

Been at the PO River 3 times in the last week and a half, Most of the time the bite has been a little slow but we all got fish. The first trip was that best for numbers as we got about 8 pike each as well as a few nice bass both LM and SM. Biggest fish that trip was about 24". Next trip we didnt catch as many but they were bigger. My best that day was 28" on one of my Fish-N-Fool lures but for some reason we didn't manage to get a pix of it. My new buddy Brian got the toad of the day, on a #5 Mepps spinner, with big fish of 39 3/4", but it was not even close to the biggest fish we saw. Here is a few pixs of it. As you can see it had a tag in it from the Res.






Last trip was super slow. I only got 4 pike all day with only 1 nice fish caught. I got a 27" on a hard swimbait. One of my buddies got skunked and the other got a few small ones.

[dougw]

Nice fish guys!

[Lucius]

Been at the PO River 3 times in the last week and a half, Most of the time the bite has been a little slow but we all got fish. The first trip was that best for numbers as we got about 8 pike each as well as a few nice bass both LM and SM. Biggest fish that trip was about 24". Next trip we didnt catch as many but they were bigger. My best that day was 28" on one of my Fish-N-Fool lures but for some reason we didn't manage to get a pix of it. My new buddy Brian got the toad of the day, on a #5 Mepps spinner, with big fish of 39 3/4", but it was not even close to the biggest fish we saw. Here is a few pixs of it. As you can see it had a tag in it from the Res.



Last trip was super slow. I only got 4 pike all day with only 1 nice fish caught. I got a 27" on a hard swimbait. One of my buddies got skunked and the other got a few small ones.

That is a heck of a pike fish-n-fool. Did you get the tag number and call the kalispel trip with the length, weight, and girth of the fish? I know the kalispel tribe would like all that info on all tagged fish if anybody else catches one. Again great pike fish-n-fool. I suppose you won't give up your secret location of where you caught the monster? No worries, I wouldn't either. Oh and I don't know if you were aware, but holding fish vertical by the gill-plate, especially the bigger ones really puts stress on the spine and can cause mortality to the fish later on even if it swims off. I guess it is not a big deal if you decided to keep it, but if it was released, I definitely would like to have shot at catching her in the future.

Again great fish...I am really Jealous:salut:

[Fish-N-Fool]

That is a heck of a pike fish-n-fool. Did you get the tag number and call the kalispel trip with the length, weight, and girth of the fish? I know the kalispel tribe would like all that info on all tagged fish if anybody else catches one. Again great pike fish-n-fool. I suppose you won't give up your secret location of where you caught the monster? No worries, I wouldn't either. Oh and I don't know if you were aware, but holding fish vertical by the gill-plate, especially the bigger ones really puts stress on the spine and can cause mortality to the fish later on even if it swims off. I guess it is not a big deal if you decided to keep it, but if it was released, I definitely would like to have shot at catching her in the future.

Again great fish...I am really Jealous:salut:

Since I didnt catch it I didnt call & I dont know if he reported the catch or not,
He wanted to mount the fish even though I told him that repilicas are cheaper and look nicer, but I couldnt talk him out of keeping her. lord knows I tried! LOL I don't keep any fish at all So you can't catch that one but the one we saw that could'a ate that 40" is the one I want to catch lol,
As for my secert spot we got her in the PO river
I see you live in Puyallup, So You get over here to fish the PO river offen? That would be a long haul.
I'll get that 50+" fish next time.

[Lucius]

Since I didnt catch it I didnt call & I dont know if he reported the catch or not,
He wanted to mount the fish even though I told him that repilicas are cheaper and look nicer, but I couldnt talk him out of keeping her. lord knows I tried! LOL I don't keep any fish at all So you can't catch that one but the one we saw that could'a ate that 40" is the one I want to catch lol,
As for my secert spot we got her in the PO river
I see you live in Puyallup, So You get over here to fish the PO river offen? That would be a long haul.
I'll get that 50+" fish next time.

Well since there are currently no regs, you buddy didn't break any rules. I am not going to lie, when my wife caught her trophy we kept it, but that was before we knew any better. Her fish was 44" and about 27lbs or so. When we got the mount back it stunk up her room like old fish for like 3 months. That was about 8 years ago now and I need to get the mount touched up a bit. I have a replica of my 46" tiger and I don't think I will never need to perform a touchup on it as long as I don't drop it. And it didn't stink like old fish for 3 months and you are right they cost the same these days plus a replica will be the actually size of your fish where as skin mount won't because the skin will shrink. My wifes mount is like 2 inches shorter than the actually fish.

I have fished the PO River 2 times this year so far. First time I caught 1 pike and then nothing, but the second time we were pretty successful. From what I hear though the river is up 2 feet and the fish has turned off. Going to be back there next month for our Pend Orielle Pike tourney. I can't wait!!!

Below is my biggest caught from P.O. River and my wife's 44"

[YJ Guide Service]

Nice fish guys and gals, I talked to the warm water biologist for the Pend Oreille River and they feel we have a Pike over population occuring. We need to keep the smaller 2-5lb fish and turn all them big girls back to spawn. I use to believe i needed to return every fish i caught no matter the size, but have been educated now and want to see the PO river turn into a trophy fishery rather than a river full of stunted 25-30 inch fish with not many pigs. There has been alot of talk about them killing a state record fish which i not true at all, just rumors. I would also like to remind people becareful and handle those big fish with care so they can keep reproducing the fish we all love to catch, keep them big fish horizontal not vertical when handling them, that was great advice alot of people dont know. Good luck fishing and hopefully will see everyone at the tourney on June 12th

[Lucius]

Nice fish guys and gals, I talked to the warm water biologist for the Pend Oreille River and they feel we have a Pike over population occuring. We need to keep the smaller 2-5lb fish and turn all them big girls back to spawn. I use to believe i needed to return every fish i caught no matter the size, but have been educated now and want to see the PO river turn into a trophy fishery rather than a river full of stunted 25-30 inch fish with not many pigs. There has been alot of talk about them killing a state record fish which i not true at all, just rumors. I would also like to remind people becareful and handle those big fish with care so they can keep reproducing the fish we all love to catch, keep them big fish horizontal not vertical when handling them, that was great advice alot of people dont know. Good luck fishing and hopefully will see everyone at the tourney on June 12th

Good point Craig. I too have had conversations with the Kalispel Biologists as well as the WDFW biologist and both are definitely concerned about the explosion of the smaller pike population. For this reason, we are switching our tournament up a bit. It will be a catch keep and weight for the smaller fish and a catch and release for the larger fish. The weight and length will be combined for points and whoever has the most points will win. After the tournament we are going to have a big fish fry of all the smaller pike that are kept and weighted, it is going to be an awesome time, I can't wait!!:cheers:

[YJ Guide Service]

Nice that sounds like a great way of doing things. Are we looking at a certain length fish to measure and release? or weight? Cant wait for the meeting next week sounds like we might have a pretty good turnout hopefully. Seth Burrel is hopefully sending one of his employees who works close with him to the meeting they actually have some questions about whats going on for the fish and game person thats suppose to be there. He said hes talked to them via email for the last couple years and theyre doing just the opposite of what they told him they were going to do. We definetely need to protect that fishery up there but sometimes messing with nature doesnt always make things better either. Seems like most fish go through a 10yr cycle and messing with that isnt always good. I talked to someone that said someone from fish and game went to one of there bass clubs meetings and told them they needed to kill all the Pike they caught during this weekends tournament which means they will slice the gills and put them back which isnt the right thing either no matter how big the fish are. If they want the fish removed they need to donate the fish to a homeless shelter or food bank if there going to just remove fish because, seems like a lot of wasted meat. I also feel like fish and game should be having some kind of informative meeting with the anglers and guides before they do alot of these things and get our prospective on what we see and what we think should happen with the fishery up there. I for one am all for it becoming a trophy fishery. I think in order for it to become that they will need to ban bobber fishing up there, to many big fish are killed cause of this practice and the type of gear that is used. Those fish take the treble hooks so deep that there is no way to return the fish after that using dead bait. I guess we will see soon enough what the fish and game come up with for regulations up there. Good fishing everyone im off to Lake Roosevelt for Walleye Sat and Pike on the PO River Sunday.

[ProAngler'sDaughter]

I sure hope we make it over next week. I've got some good pike-frying recipes. If we score the fish when they are filleted the little bones will fry right up and disappear! Makes for some good eatin'!!!

PAD

[Lucius]

I sure hope we make it over next week. I've got some good pike-frying recipes. If we score the fish when they are filleted the little bones will fry right up and disappear! Makes for some good eatin'!!!

PAD

Hey Now, I thought you were for sure coming after you missed last years. I know I am very anxious to try out some new pike recipes!! :bounce: