1/13/09 What’s Happening

Mud Lake to receive only fingerling plants

Mud Lake, once a popular and easily accessible trout-fishing pond just off Highway 410, will now be treated by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife lake stockers as a high lake, and no longer be stocked with catchable trout from the Naches hatchery.

The once-busy access road to the lake has been gated to the public and the WDFW because it enters and crosses private property before reaching state land. Since that closure, the lake has received significantly less angling pressure, because fishers must either reach the lake by foot or by navigating the rugged, serepentine road over Cleman Mountain.

Because the large hatchery planting truck can’t reach the lake to deliver trout that are already of catchable size, fingerlings or fry will be delivered by a smaller, all-wheel-drive vehicle once a year in late spring.

The triploid plants that normally go to Mud Lake will be apportioned between Tim’s Pond and Myron Lake.

Snowboard film has environmental point

A snowboard film with a global-warming message, “My Own Two Feet,” will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Eisenhower’s Little Theatre.

The film event is being put on jointly by the Yakima Environmental Learning Foundation and Ike’s Environmental Club. The film, sponsored by Protect Out Winters, looks at the potential effects climate change could have on the ski/snowboard industry.

To learn more about the film, go to www.leewardcinema.com/2feet/

Perfect rounds top trap club shoot

Sean Daley and Jim Turnbull captured the men’s division, Daley with a perfect 25×25, and seniors winner Tom Pratt of Ellensburg also had a perfect 25-shot round in Sunday’s second week of the Yakima Valley Sportsmen trap club’s nine-week Button Shoot.

Josh Jorgensen took the juniors button, while Paul Klingele won the Annie Oakley competition.

Shooting begins at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday. Participants should bring shells plus eye and hearing protecting.

Bird Alert: Call this a real owl trifecta

A birder just south of the Yakima airport was checking the roost of a barn owl that had been residing there, when he was surprised to spot a long-eared owl perched just below the barn owl. While the resident birder was showing the owls to another birder, the activity spooked a second barn owl from the trees.

High waters this week may have impeded birders’ progress, but didn’t deter them from finding some good birds around Yakima this week. The Yakima Area Arboretum was good for 24 species of birds, including two fox sparrows, an immature bald eagle in the trees along the far shore from Buchanan Lake and a pair of ruddy ducks at the Sarg Hubbard’s Park concert pond.

American crows sounded a bit agitated in a neighborhood new Fisher Golf Course and Eisenhower, a local birding enthusiast found the cause of the ruckus: three crows in dogged pursuit of a small falcon that turned out to be a merlin.  Elsewhere, a northern shrike made a brief appearance in a Terrace Heights yard and a Yakima resident putting out peanuts has attracted scrub jays, a Steller’s jay and black-billed magpies.

Please call your bird sightings into the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 248-1963.

— Kerry L. Turley, President, Yakima Valley Audubon

AROUND AND ABOUT

TRI-CITIES SPORTSMEN SHOW: The 16th annual event runs Friday through Sunday at the TRAC in Pasco, featuring many of the same attractions as the Central Washington Sportsmen Show that will return Feb. 13-15 to the Yakima SunDome. These shows have it all — big-game displays, seminars and how-to demonstrations on everything from fly-tying to Dutch Oven cooking, hands-on activities including a 3-D indoor archery range and the kids’ casting pool, and more experts than you can shake a fishing pole at. For a complete rundown on what you can see when, go to www.shuylerproductions.com/.

KIDS’ CLINIC RESET: The White Pass kids’ clinic and the ski area’s Top of the Hill free test-drive event, both originally scheduled for last weekend, were rescheduled for this weekend because of last week’s winter storm. Some good news for White Pass ski and snowboard enthusiasts: The high-speed quad is back on full power after a brief stint running at 75 percent speed on generator power.

MASTER HUNTER ORIENTATION: The first of a series of WDFW master hunter orientation meetings for those interested in enrolling in the program will be held Feb. 14 in Yakima, at the West Valley Fire Department. The meeting will focus on the application process, certification requirements and the role of the master hunter. Participants may apply for the program after the meetings and will receive packets and study materials to take home. Pre-registration is not required.

ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY AND EVERY TUESDAY: The Cascadians’ Tuesday hikers meet at 8 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-mart parking lot and carpool from there to the day’s cross-country ski or snowshoe trip, always determined that day based on weather and snow conditions.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies will do a walk on the Yakima Greenway north from Sarg Hubbard Park. For meeting time and place, call Jeanne Crawford at 966-8608.

TUESDAY (JAN. 20): The Yakima Fly Fishers Association’s first regular meeting of the new year, set for 7 p.m. in the meeting room at Bert’s Pub in Glenwood Square, will feature a fly-tying demonstration by expert Nabor Martinez.
JAN. 28: The Cascadians’ members potluck dinner at the Living Care Center (215 N. 40th Ave.) will be followed by an 8 p.m. photographic presentation by Alan Bauer on “Day Hiking Mount Rainier,” Bauer’s latest book with co-author Dan Nelson. Bauer’s photos will also include some related to his next book in the current Mountaineers Book day-hiking series, “Day Hiking Central Cascades,” set for release this spring. Non-Cascadians are welcome to attend Bauer’s presentation.