I just noticed it reading the regs while fishing last week. There is a statewide slot limit for Bass. You can keep 5 but they have to be 12" and under and you can only keep one over 17" . How will this effect the trout fishing in many lakes? it seems to me that the state is protecting the breeding bass and by doing so will effect the trout pops and sizes. If you have a lake full of 13 to 16" bass would you then have to adjust the avg. size of your trout plants to stop predation? it would seem to me they would be better off adopting lake by lake or river by river regs rather than having a statewide slot. ANy thoughts?

bass dont eat that many trout, only the weak and injured, mainly sculpins and crawdads, lampreys, ect.

man, cormarants and bigger trout are there enemys

Theking -
Surprising enough if there are to be both bass and trout in the water a slot limit is often the best way to manage the bass population to insure the best survival and growth of the trout.

Traditionally the State's approach to managing lowland lake trout waters was a single species water. Thus reserving all the lake's productivity for trout growth. This was done with rotenone - a fish toxin that had minimal impacts on the rest of the aquatic ecosystem. However with growing opposition of the "poisoning" of lakes by anglers and lake shore owners and relentless onsluaght of illegal stocking of exotic fish in waters the program is no long feasible in Western Washington.

As the result of mostly illegal introductions bass are now found in nearly all of the lowland lakes of western Washington and much of eastern Washington. What was noted in the 1980s was the trout survival in mix species waters were often better in lakes with long established bass populations (a balanced warm water pop.) than those lakes with recent introductions. What was observed was that much of the trout mortality was from food competition rather than predation. Lakes with lots of small bass and other warm water fish were getting the food prior to the trout (the smaller fish eating the zooplankton prior to it getting large enough for the trout.

Slot limits on the bass insure that there are enough mid-size fish to seriously reduce the small fish population. Under such management both the bass and trout benefit. With fewer small bass the growth rate of the bass improving while allowing some survival of the trout. This mixed management does come with an increased cost for the trout. Larger fish have to be planted.

Tight lines
S malma

How cool would it be to have a slot limit on trout... ...)

Smalma,

That makes some sense. But why then would the state have 30+ lakes that have always been great trout lakes scheduled for rehab? Why not just plant bigger trout? I also hear that BC banned rotenone and once a lake goes to warm water fish they leave it that way. They are losing a ton of once awesome Kamaloops lakes to bass.