Travel / Outdoors

Mark Yuasa covers fishing and outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.

State and tribal fishery managers will soon begin working on eliminating northern pike from the Box Canyon Reservoir on the Pend Oreille River in northeast Washington.

This is the second year of efforts that will begin in early March through April to remove these predators that have the potential to gobble up native fish species.

The Kalispel Tribe Natural Resources Department will use gillnets to remove pike from the reservoir.

Fisheries biologist found a big increase of pike in the reservoir along with a big drop in other fish species.

While specific effort will be to eliminate them in the reservoir, a state Fish and Wildlife news release says they have also been caught by anglers in the Columbia River just north of the Canadian border, near Northport and Kettle Falls, and in the Spokane River from Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho to Long Lake in Spokane County.

Last year gillnets caught 5,808 northern pike, and anglers caught 233 during two fishing derbies.

The is no daily catch limit on pike.

The pikes were illegally introduced in Montana, and eventually migrated into Idaho and then into Washington waters.

There will be a northern pike fishing derby May 17-19. For details, call Jason Olson at 509-447-7290.