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Mark Freeman Commentary Biologists pin hopes on nets for chub removal Oregon fish biologists, and others who enjoy trout-fishing at Diamond Lake, are all hoping the same methods used to sweep portions of the ocean clean of fish can also work in the High Cascades. A Newport commercial fisherman will take his herring-netting techniques to the base of Mount Bailey next week and try to capture millions of small tui chubs that have overrun Diamond Lake. Bob Schones and his crew will try sweeping beach seines through the shallows and will tow a large "lampera" net traditionally used to fish tons of herring out of coastal bays. Schones� target this time will be the tui chubs, an illegally introduced trash fish whose numbers have expanded into the millions and have all but ruined Diamond Lake�s reputation as an angling paradise. There is no way the netting alone can rid the large and shallow mountain lake of chubs and reclaim Diamond Lake�s former place as the most visited trout-fishing lake in Oregon. Instead, next week�s project amounts to a four-day experiment. It will gauge whether using the commercial fishing techniques from the sea will prove effective at helping stamp out the chub, says Steve Denney, who heads the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife regional office in Roseburg. "If we can get a glimmer of hope that using these nets can show some promise, we�ll do some more work with them," Denney says. The ultimate hope for Denney and other ODFW biologists is that future mass netting can be used to trim down the chub population before agency biologists chemically treat the lake to kill off all the chub. The nets also could be a cornerstone of a less drastic solution: manually removing 80-90 percent of the chubs, then mass stocking trout and salmon species that would feed heavily on those chubs that remain. But first things first, Denney warns. Biologists need to know whether dragging the high-mountain waters will get the desired net effect for Diamond Lake. "We want to be able to catch millions of chubs," Denney says. Diamond Lake was once a mecca for fly-casters and others who saw the lake as the jewel of the Cascades. Its cool waters created bountiful insect hatches that turned stocked fingerling trout into fat 20-plus inchers, making Diamond Lake the state�s most-fished trout lake. Then one sport-fisherman ruined it for everyone. Some unknown angler brought in tiny tui chub as bait, but some escaped alive. Now, these trash fish have ballooned to more than 26 million � with about 22 million of them less than 2 inches long. All those chubs eat all the lake�s insects and take up all the usable water in Diamond Lake to a point where most trout simply cannot eke out a living. The ODFW now regularly stocks the lake with larger trout, which can either prey on chubs or feed on enough insects until anglers catch and keep them. When similar chub outbreaks occurred in the 1940s and again in 1954, biologists chemically treated the lake, killing off all the fish before restocking with trout and starting over. Chemical treatment is one of several potential options being looked at now by the ODFW and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an environmental impact study now underway. Regardless of whether next week�s netting experiment works, the results will be added to that draft EIS, ODFW spokeswoman Meghan Collins says. On Monday and Tuesday, Schones and his four-person crew will drag large beach seines through the shallows. These nets should be very effective at catching chubs, especially in the mid-July period when the chubs heavily congregate in the shallows, ODFW biologist Dave Loomis says. But the question, Loomis says, is whether they can effectively catch chubs in the areas full of weeds or stumps � two underwater dangers that hamper netting efforts. The large lampera net, which will be drug behind a skiff, may prove less effective because it is for deeper waters, Loomis says. Also, the lampera net is more apt to catch too many rainbow trout, which must be sorted out and released unharmed, he says. "Of the 26 million chub out there," Loomis says, "we don�t know how many will be vulnerable to netting." The project will cost $25,000 to $30,000 and will be paid from the $400,000 that the ODFW has set aside for helping fund the Diamond Lake environmental impact study. Schones will haul away all the chubs he catches, Loomis says. If the haul is small, they will go to a landfill; if the catch is substantial, he has arranged to truck them to a coastal rendering plant, Loomis says. The whole scenario points to how desperate times are at Diamond Lake, and how biologists and anglers alike are desperately seeking a solution. "We just don�t know what will work." Loomis says, "until we get out there and try it." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at: [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. 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