Outdoors

POSTED: Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Colville tribe funds hatchery.

Colville Fish Hatchery will continue to raise and release trout for lakes in Northeast Washington for at least one more year.

The Colville Confederated Tribe's Business Council has agreed to put up $108,000 needed to continue production of kokanee, westslope cutthroat and red-band rainbow trout.

Specifically, the tribe's monies will pay staff salaries at the state facility as well as buy fish food and cover other production costs such as transportation.

The funding will sustain the hatchery until June 30, 2010 and will allow 409,000 kokanee (landlocked sockeye salmon) and trout to be hatched and raised for release in 72 locales in Pend Oreille, Stevens and Ferry counties.

The Colville Fish Hatchery is located in the City of Colville.

Two regional fish and wildlife department gamefish programs are housed there, one for hatching and early rearing of native westslope cutthroat trout from the Kings Lake stock; the second, incubation and rearing of red-band rainbow trout of the Phalon Lake stock.

Kokanee produced at the hatchery are mainly for Roosevelt Lake behind Grand Coulee Dam.

With a boost in funding the kokanee program will expand.

The Colville Tribe will monitor the increased introductions for returns to angler creels as well as to spawning grounds in the Sanpoil River.

Both department and Colville tribal officials hailed the agreement as an example of the long history of cooperation between the tribe and state.

The Colville Tribe allows visitors who are not enrolled members of the tribe, who purchase a Colville recreational fishing license, to fish certain lakes within reservation boundaries under the tribe's regulations.