Lake Pend Oreille

Overview

Lake Pend Oreille is Idaho's largest lake, 92,764 acres in Bonner and Kootenai counties with 144 miles of shoreline and a measured depth of more than 1,170 feet, which makes it one of the deepest inland lakes in North America. It was carved by glaciers, is ringed by mountains and drains as the Pend Oreille River. The fishery is built on kokanee. IDFG describes them as the keystone of the lake: a popular sport fish in their own right and the forage that grows the Gerrard-strain Kamloops rainbows and native bull trout the lake is known for. The 37-pound rainbow Wes Hamlet caught here in 1947 is still the Idaho state record, and the lake also produced the 32-pound world-record bull trout. The kokanee population nearly collapsed in the 2000s under lake trout and walleye predation; an aggressive netting and angler-harvest program that began in 2006 turned it around, and IDFG estimated more than 2.5 million adult kokanee in the lake in fall 2019, the most since the mid-1990s. Most trophy anglers troll, and the Angler Incentive Program still pays cash for lake trout and walleye. For fly anglers the realistic game is the shallows and river mouths in spring and fall, stripping large streamers for rainbows and westslope cutthroat at creek mouths, and any bull trout that eats must go straight back. Sandpoint on the north shore is the base.