Did you hear? The Icicle Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited is featured in Trout Magazine!

Congratulations to Icicle Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited! We were featured in a Trout Magazine article: "Icicle Valley Chapter Participates in Aggressive Reintroduction."

It’s a great article- see the excerpt below: 

Salmon, steelhead and bull trout recovery in the upper Columbia River and its tributaries continues to be a difficult task. There have been some successes, but overall, populations of these listed species continue to struggle to recover. There is, however, an upper Columbia regional success story to report.

Lake Chelan, the largest natural lake in Washington State, is located in North Central Washington. This long, narrow, and very deep lake heads in North Cascades National Park and empties into the short and steep Chelan River, a tributary of the Columbia.

Westslope Cutthroat Trout are native to Lake Chelan. In fact, all of the cutthroat that are raised at Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife hatcheries in North Central Washington originated from Lake Chelan stock.

Once a cutthroat stronghold, Lake Chelan’s population was decimated over the years by over-fishing, habitat degradation and introduced species. Ironically, that original

Lake Chelan stock is now being used as part of an aggressive program led by WDFW to restore a healthy cutthroat population in the lake. Regional WDFW fish biologist Travis Maitland provided details about the effort: “In addition to Railroad Creek, WDFW has been stocking many other Lake Chelan tributaries annually with thousands of cutthroat fry since at least 2010.” Since 2014, WDFW has also stocked thousands of year-old cutthroat directly into the lake. Eighty percent of these fish are marked with an adipose fin clip in order to provide an immediate contribution to a harvestable cutthroat fishery. The other 20 percent, which are unmarked, are intended to contribute to natural reproduction….

To read the full article, go to the Summer Edition of Trout Magazine, page 67.