Lake Pend Oreille

Description

Lake Pend Oreille in the northern Idaho Panhandle is the largest lake in the U.S. state of Idaho and the 38th-largest lake by area in the United States, with a surface area of 148 square miles (380 km2). It is 69 kilometres (43 mi) long, and 1,152 feet (351 m) deep in some regions, making it the fifth-deepest in the nation and having a volume of 43,939,940 acre feet = 54 km3. The lake is fed by the Clark Fork River and the Pack River, and drains into the Pend Oreille River, as well as subsurfacely into the Spokane Valley–Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. It is surrounded by national forests and a few small towns, with the largest population on the lake at Sandpoint. The majority of the shoreline is non-populated and all but the southern tip of the lake is in Bonner County. The southern tip is in Kootenai County and is home to Farragut State Park, formerly the Farragut Naval Training Station during World War II, of which a small part is still active and conducts U.S. Navy acoustic underwater submarine research. The surrounding forests consist of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, red cedar, poplar, quaking aspen, hemlock, paper birch and western larch. Local animal species include white-tailed deer, elk, gray wolves, moose, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, black bears, grizzly bear, coyotes, mountain goat, cougar and bobcats, along with bald eagles, wild turkeys, osprey, owls, hummingbirds, hawks, woodpeckers, ducks, and the mountain bluebird. The lake is a home for several species of migratory water fowl. The lake is home to many species of fish, including rainbow trout, lake trout, bull trout, cutthroat trout, brown trout, cutbow, perch, black crappie, bluegill, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, whitefish, walleye, northern pike, northern pikeminnow, and kokanee salmon. Lake Pend Oreille was also the home of the 37-pound (17-kilogram) state record gerrard rainbow trout (aka kamloops rainbow) caught by Wes Hamlet in 1947.