07-18-2013, 02:19 PM
[#0000FF]The reality is that the State Parks have suffered a big hit this year with low water...and the oil spill mess at Willard. They will take fees from anybody who wants to go through the gates. No entrance exam on type of music or decibels played. And those folks with the big play boats probably contribute more during the summer than us lowly fisher types. Same deal at Pineview and other lakes. We can complain but it never does any good. Kinda like marriage.
You are correct in your observations of the perch. They are "sleek". A big part of that is they spawned a bit late, with the long ice covering, and the young of the year are just getting big enough to make a meal. They haven't had much to eat for a while. Of the few decent sized ones I kept to fillet only one had a larger perchlet in it...maybe a 2 incher from last year. Some of the others had newby fry that were barely an inch long. The good news is that they were still healthy...with fairly nice thick fillets. Not the paper thin fillets as with the white bass at Utah Lake.
The perch seem to be coming back fairly well at Jordanelle (it rhymes). At least there were good numbers last fall and for a few folks through the ice. Sizes are still not that great. I got a few footlongs in October last year but most are smaller...or much smaller. Looking for more 11 to 12 inchers by the end of this year...if the food holds out and the lake does not go dry.
Most perch lakes are similar in that perch are at both the top and bottom of the food chain. If the big perch have a good spawn there will be enough baby perch to feed the big ones and for a few to grow big enough to spawn eventually. But, as we have seen at Yuba and Deer Creek, a low water year with poor spawning conditions can wipe out a whole year class and leave the bigger perch hungry.
The big difference between Starvation and most other perch ponds is that there are still large areas of flooded sage brush and trees left in the lake when it was filled. That stuff is rotting away and will be gone someday but for the present it provides the type of underwater structure perch need to spawn...no matter how low the water gets. I'd say the prognosis for perch in Jordanelle might be better than for most of the other popular perch lakes.
Yeah, it would be nice to be able to have one or two days a week in which the power squadron had some imposed limitations. But no matter how the State Parks system tried to set it up it would never keep the blasterboaters happy.
Down in southern Arizona they have similar problems...the ongoing battle between serious anglers, small boaters and the wave wackos that equate noise and speed with enjoys. On one of the larger lakes (Lake Pleasant) they set aside a couple of popular fishing arms for wakeless only. And they restricted jet skis to one large arm that was buoyed off against bigger boats or fishing. You guessed it...civil war. On another small lake down near the Mexican border (Patagonia Lake) they restricted the use of big motors to weekend only. During the week there was a max of 10 hp. Again...open revolt. And there were many good fishing spots around that little lake where it was impossible to maintain any kind of 150 foot proximity rule. If you wanted to fish in peace, run a small boat...or float tube...or paddle a canoe...you had to be off the water by 9:30 or 10:00 or you could become part of the evening news. Lots of small boats swamped by huge bow wakes and several T-bones among the power squadron too. Didn't mind those.
Thou and I share a similar outlook. Regardless of what kind of craft you put on the water from which to fish you should be able to enjoy the esthetics of the experience without experiencing the onslaught of all the wackos.
But, because it is about money...always...our kind ain't gonna get no breaks. Just gotta wait it out until after Labor Day. Once school is back in session and the water gets cooler the crazies thin out and the fishing gets better. Any short pleasant interludes before that are blessings...for which we must be properly grateful.
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[signature]
You are correct in your observations of the perch. They are "sleek". A big part of that is they spawned a bit late, with the long ice covering, and the young of the year are just getting big enough to make a meal. They haven't had much to eat for a while. Of the few decent sized ones I kept to fillet only one had a larger perchlet in it...maybe a 2 incher from last year. Some of the others had newby fry that were barely an inch long. The good news is that they were still healthy...with fairly nice thick fillets. Not the paper thin fillets as with the white bass at Utah Lake.
The perch seem to be coming back fairly well at Jordanelle (it rhymes). At least there were good numbers last fall and for a few folks through the ice. Sizes are still not that great. I got a few footlongs in October last year but most are smaller...or much smaller. Looking for more 11 to 12 inchers by the end of this year...if the food holds out and the lake does not go dry.
Most perch lakes are similar in that perch are at both the top and bottom of the food chain. If the big perch have a good spawn there will be enough baby perch to feed the big ones and for a few to grow big enough to spawn eventually. But, as we have seen at Yuba and Deer Creek, a low water year with poor spawning conditions can wipe out a whole year class and leave the bigger perch hungry.
The big difference between Starvation and most other perch ponds is that there are still large areas of flooded sage brush and trees left in the lake when it was filled. That stuff is rotting away and will be gone someday but for the present it provides the type of underwater structure perch need to spawn...no matter how low the water gets. I'd say the prognosis for perch in Jordanelle might be better than for most of the other popular perch lakes.
Yeah, it would be nice to be able to have one or two days a week in which the power squadron had some imposed limitations. But no matter how the State Parks system tried to set it up it would never keep the blasterboaters happy.
Down in southern Arizona they have similar problems...the ongoing battle between serious anglers, small boaters and the wave wackos that equate noise and speed with enjoys. On one of the larger lakes (Lake Pleasant) they set aside a couple of popular fishing arms for wakeless only. And they restricted jet skis to one large arm that was buoyed off against bigger boats or fishing. You guessed it...civil war. On another small lake down near the Mexican border (Patagonia Lake) they restricted the use of big motors to weekend only. During the week there was a max of 10 hp. Again...open revolt. And there were many good fishing spots around that little lake where it was impossible to maintain any kind of 150 foot proximity rule. If you wanted to fish in peace, run a small boat...or float tube...or paddle a canoe...you had to be off the water by 9:30 or 10:00 or you could become part of the evening news. Lots of small boats swamped by huge bow wakes and several T-bones among the power squadron too. Didn't mind those.
Thou and I share a similar outlook. Regardless of what kind of craft you put on the water from which to fish you should be able to enjoy the esthetics of the experience without experiencing the onslaught of all the wackos.
But, because it is about money...always...our kind ain't gonna get no breaks. Just gotta wait it out until after Labor Day. Once school is back in session and the water gets cooler the crazies thin out and the fishing gets better. Any short pleasant interludes before that are blessings...for which we must be properly grateful.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]