#Hidden lake campground alaska trial#

They are actually char, not trout, and can live up to 50 years. 'I really don't have any sense for it, and I don't think anybody has any real data about what is going on,' Gates said.īiologists consider lake trout susceptible to overharvesting because they grow slowly and don't spawn before they're 5 years old - and then only every other year. Used to be you could go out there and catch 10 of them, but now maybe it's just one or two and they're small.' 'I fish it a lot, and I think it's gone downhill the last 5-10 years,' Wall said.

Sharp declines in the legal bag limit from 12 lake trout a day to just one fish might lead to the perception among anglers that fishing has declined. 'Within the past few years, anglers and management biologists have become concerned about the health of the lake trout population in Hidden Lake,' he said, pointing to declines in angler-reported harvest over the past decade. Two months ago, working with cooperative ice fishermen, his office tagged and released 22 of them, an effort expected to resume later this month. Fish and Wildlife Service in Kenai is trying to get his arms around the size and status of the lake trout in Hidden Lake. Moore has had a Hidden Lake fish on his line he estimated at 20 pounds, and he said he landed a 15-pounder through the ice last year shortly after the derby ended.

The state record, caught on Clarence Lake in 1970, weighed 47 pounds. The winner of the Soldotna Trustworthy Ice Fishing Derby in February was Douglas Lee's 7-pound lake trout from Hidden Lake, and a year ago Larry Wall's 12 1/2-pounder topped the field.Īlaska's largest freshwater fish can grow big. Hidden Lake's pink-flesh lake trout average 2 to 4 pounds. It's a pretty pristine fishery, and more and more people are figuring it out.'

#Hidden lake campground alaska trial#

'It took me a lot of trial and error and talking to old-timers around here to get a handle on Hidden Lake. 'We fish from ice out to the middle of June,' said Matt Moore of Soldotna, who has fished it for years. That means one of the largest populations of lake trout on the Kenai Peninsula will be cruising the shallow waters of the 1,596-acre lake the next couple of weeks. Ice vanished last week from the gorgeous, glacially carved 4-1/2-mile long Hidden Lake on the Kenai Peninsula.