Here are five of the best lakeside campgrounds due to their family-friendly beaches and easy access for watersports recreation, including paddling, boating, and fishing — plus lots of reservable campsites.

Sam Owen at Lake Pend Oreille

Large campground, with four loops, located on a peninsula south of Hope, Idaho, along the east side of Lake Pend Oreille.

Amenities: boat launch, dock, day-use area and beach, sand volleyball court, paddle gear rentals, and dog-friendly beach.

One of the best Inland NW lakeside campgrounds: Sam Owen Campground has a big beach for hanging out all day for paddling and swimming. // Photo: Amy McCaffree

National Forest Campgrounds on west Side of Priest Lake

10 U.S. National Forest campgrounds at Priest and Upper Priest lakes, including boat-in island campgrounds.

Amenities: Shoreline trails for hiking and mountain biking; boat launches; and Luby, Osprey, and Outlet campgrounds are within MTB/hiking distance to Hill’s Resort. (See “5 Adventures on Priest Lake’s Western Shores” for more recreation ideas.)

Paddling and camping at Priest Lake, Idaho: Views from Outlet Campground, both from the campsite and on the water. // Photos: Amy McCaffree

Heyburn State Park

Heyburn State Park, near Plummer, Idaho, includes three campgrounds on Chatcolet and Benewah Lakes, south of Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Amenities: Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, Rocky Point beach and boat launch, rental cabins, Plummer Point day-use area and dog-friendly beach, MTB and hiking trails, ranger station and visitor center near Hawley’s Landing.

Heyburn State Park includes Hawley’s Landing Campground (left) and Rocky Point marina and day-use beach (right). / Photos: Amy McCaffree

Round Lake State Park

Round Lake State Park is a paddling and fishing paradise in Sagle, Idaho. The lake is annually stocked with trout by Idaho Fish & Game, and no combustion-motor boats are allowed.

Amenities: two docks, large swimming area, ranger station and visitor center, paddle gear rentals, and MTB/hiking trail around lake.

Round Lake State Park: Small, quiet lake with docks, boat launch, and swimming beach. // Photos courtesy of Robin Lewis.

Fort Spokane at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area

Fort Spokane Campground is one of many National Park Service campgrounds within Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area at the 130-mile-long lake—a power-boating and fishing mecca. Fort Spokane is the campground closest to Spokane, located at confluence with the Spokane River.

Amenities: boat launch and trailer parking, fish cleaning station, sandy boat-in beaches along lake and river, and Fort Spokane Visitor Center and Museum.

Boat launch at Fort Spokane where the Spokane River flows into Lake Roosevelt (left); Powerboat and tubing fun on Lake Roosevelt. // Photos: Amy McCaffree

Find more stories about lake recreation and adventure destinations in the Lake Guide archives.

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Chinook salmon are a cultural and ecological keystone species for the rivers of the Inland Northwest. These salmon, among other anadromous, ocean-going fish, were blocked from their historical migration routes with the construction of Grand Coulee Dam in 1942. For regional tribes, chinook were once abundant and important subsistence fish upstream of that dam

Paired with previous adult and juvenile releases, this study will be the first large-scale formal research investigating the behavior and survival of these juvenile fish as they make their way through Lake Roosevelt, passing Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams, followed by the successive downstream dams on the Columbia River equipped with fish passage.

This is a truly collaborative process, pooling resources between the three tribes. First, Chinook salmon to be released are raised in the Coeur d’Alene tribal fish hatchery.

Next, the Tribes release juvenile chinook into their waterways: Latah Creek, the Spokane River below Nine Mile Dam, and areas of Lake Roosevelt. Releases are timed so that as the fish move downstream, they will create a larger and larger sample size.

Tribes use two different tracking devices: a passive integrated transponder (PIT tag), like ones used in pets, and an acoustic tag. The PIT tags generate data for the life of the fish as it passes through the dams on the Columbia on its way to the ocean, and then hopefully in 2–3 years on its return as an adult swimming upstream through the dams with fish passage.

According to Colville Confederated Tribal fish biologist Casey Baldwin, “The acoustic study that is occurring this spring is the first large-scale pilot study to evaluate survival in reaches of the blocked area and through the dams, and it will also provide some data on travel times and behavior near the dams.”

Due to size and battery life, acoustic tags will provide data for an average of 80 days. The Tribes share the maintenance of 50 acoustic arrays in Lake Roosevelt.

The acoustic tags can be monitored from approximately 200 meters away of an array, whereas the PIT tags must come within five feet of a reader. The PIT tag readers are located in fish passages on Rocky Reach Dam, near the city of Wenatchee, Wash., and other downstream dams.

For this season, the study has a sample size of 770 acoustic tags and approximately 4,500 PIT tags, released at nine different sites. The Tribes will repeat this study for the next three years.

Although this season marks the first formal study on juvenile chinook behavior and survival, there have been previous adult and juvenile releases for both cultural and research purposes. Releases in both the Sanpoil and the Little Spokane Rivers reveal that habitat above the dams is suitable for successful reproduction.

In the Sanpoil River, the Colville Tribe has confirmed successful spawning through the documentation of redds (spawning nests) and out-migrating juveniles past the dam the following spring.

In August 2021, the Spokane Tribe released 51 adults, 20 with radio tags, in the Waikiki springs area of the Little Spokane and found nine redds, although their surveys were limited due to private property river access.

If landowners along the Little Spokane are interested in helping the reintroduction effort, they can contact Spokane Tribal Fisheries about conducting surveys within their private waterways.

The fish of the Columbia River were and are the cultural touchstone for the Tribes of the Upper Columbia. The salmon that once ran from the streams of northeast Washington and North Idaho to the ocean and back supplied up to 75% of the subsidence diet and were the focus of seasonal gatherings, trade, and ceremonies.

As the late Colville Tribal elder Mary Marchand once said, “If you bring back our salmon, you will bring back our culture.”

Originally published in the May-June 2022 print issue.

Find more stories about salmon in the OTO archives.

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These trout are also adaptable to a range of conditions and can be found growing up to 24 inches in the deep waters of Lake Roosevelt and 4-5 inches in smaller headwater such as those flowing into Hangman (Latah) Creek. Along the Spokane River there can be as many as 300 fish per mile, but in some Idaho rivers their numbers can be as high as 3,000 fish per mile.

It isn’t always easy to tell a redband from coastal rainbow trout varieties, especially if it is at the end of a fly line. Even fish biologists Casey Flanagan and Conor Giorgi who work for the Spokane Tribe have trouble at times. But there are some ways to tell them apart.

Flanagan says in the Spokane area, hatchery trout, which are coastal rainbow varieties, will have a clipped adipose fin (a small fin along the back). Redband can also have some distinctive coloration including the namesake red lateral band as well as large rounded spots. Flanagan and Giorgi say those marks become more distinctive in populations that live in smaller streams. But when Flanagan wants to be absolutely sure she uses genetic markers.

Redband Face a Variety of Challenges

Although redband live in a variety of river habitats, their population numbers can be limited by degraded streamside habitat, increases in water temperature, as well as competition and predation from non-native fish.

The Spokane River by Sandifur Bridge near downtown Spokane is a year-round stronghold for redband and is an important nesting area where fish dig depressions in the gravel called reds to layer their eggs. Redbands struggle on other stretches of the Spokane such as those downstream of the Post Falls Dam where they are preyed on by the non-native popular game fish, small mouth bass.

The watershed of the Little Spokane River with its cold spring-fed waters and healthy riparian habitat has a healthy population of redband. Whereas some tributaries of Hangman Creek, on the other hand, have lower population numbers due to warm, seasonal water temperatures and frequent fine sediment erosion from surrounding agricultural land. This fine sediment covers up the larger gravel that the trout use to make their reds.

Conservation Collaboration

There are many collaborative conservation efforts in the region. The Spokane Tribe, Confederated Colville Tribes, and Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) collect and share similar data. Groups like the Spokane River Forum and the Spokane Riverkeeper are putting up education signage and working to protect water quality.

The EPA, Department of Ecology, tribes and WDFW are working on habitat restoration, including removing fish barriers in the Little Spokane watershed and restoring meanders and streamside habitat to the headwaters of Hangman Creek. Several county conservation districts are also encouraging landowners to opt into a voluntary stewardship program to protect their riparian habitat.

With clean water and intact, healthy habitat, redband trout can thrive in rivers and streams here in the Inland Northwest, allowing them to play their natural role in our aquatic ecosystems and anglers and nature lovers the chance so catch or see this magnificent fish.

As the weather warms up you can find Adam floating the Spokane in canoe, packraft, inner tube, or along with any friend with room on their fly-fishing raft. He last wrote about a close encounter with a woodpecker.

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