Bayley Lake Spawning Channel

On Saturday, September 21 a crew of nine from the IEFFC went up and performed our annual spawning channel cleanup.  The purpose of the cleanup is to enable fish from Bayley Lake to spawn during spring runoff and then return to the lake to live another year.

We met at Zips in Chewelah for breakfast and then proceeded to the lake.  As he has done for many years Bill Papesh led the way down the channel wielding his trimmer “from hell” mowing down grass, brush and tree limbs that were in his path.  The loose material was raked up and deposited out of the channel and then new gravel was put down on the spawning beds.  This year we had two young guys on our crew that really gave us old guys a boost.  New IEFFC member Reid Ashley brought his friend Sam Edmunster along.

After we got done with the work we went fishing.  The lake had a heavy algae bloom so unfortunately the fishing was not very good. But, it was a truly beautiful day, the lunch that Bob Schmitt made for us was very tasty and hopefully we made fishing at Bayley next year a little better.

 

Back Row L to R:  Jerry McBride, John Bennett, Chet Allison, Reid Ashley, Sam Edmunster, Scott Fink and Bob Schmitt

Front Row L to R: Jim Athearn and Bill Papesh