05-23-2016, 08:54 PM
[#0000FF]I say chubs because that is the most abundant and easiest forage to catch and plant from other waters...without having to have a special hatchery and nursery. But even a healthy population of bluegills or green sunfish would help. And unless the new plantings of kokanee are larger than fingerling size I fear that many of them will simply go toward the smallie feeding plan.
Actually, a ton of crawdads would make the smallies very happy. But talk of planting crawdads anywhere in Utah makes the DWR folks almost as nervous as talking about chubs.
Jordanelle has gone through a typical new lake cycle. Started out very fertile, with lots of flooded vegetation, etc. The chubs exploded. Ditto for the perch. The smallies were overfed and porked out in a hurry. Everybody was catching 18 to 20 inch fish and there were more than a few bigger than 20 inches. But all of a sudden the small chubs began to be snarfed up each year as fast as they were hatched. All that was left were bigger chubs. And the dwindling number of survivors got big...up to 15 inches...too big for footlong smallies. The big chubs spawned each year but none of the young ever survived to spawn themselves.
Under the ice about 6 years ago there was a huge perch dieoff. There was no CSI done on them but speculations were some kind of fishy virus. That really put a dent in the food supply for the smallies. By the time for smallies to spawn the next year, a lot of them had starved out...or died of natural causes at the end of their life cycles. And with no food for the smaller smallies they never made it over the hump to teen-incher status.
The perch have been slowly coming back. And with them the smallies have had more to eat and there are a few larger ones showing up. But the big problem is that the yearling smallies...under 6 inches long...raid the schools of new perch hatchlings...like they do at Deer Creek. Thousands of baby perch are sucked up before they ever reach fingerling size. And those that survive to 1 1/2" yearlings are eaten by the trout as well as the smallies...and by their own adult perch. Tough to be a baby perch in Jordanelle.
The problem has never been that people are keeping all the big fish. There are just no big fish to catch.
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Actually, a ton of crawdads would make the smallies very happy. But talk of planting crawdads anywhere in Utah makes the DWR folks almost as nervous as talking about chubs.
Jordanelle has gone through a typical new lake cycle. Started out very fertile, with lots of flooded vegetation, etc. The chubs exploded. Ditto for the perch. The smallies were overfed and porked out in a hurry. Everybody was catching 18 to 20 inch fish and there were more than a few bigger than 20 inches. But all of a sudden the small chubs began to be snarfed up each year as fast as they were hatched. All that was left were bigger chubs. And the dwindling number of survivors got big...up to 15 inches...too big for footlong smallies. The big chubs spawned each year but none of the young ever survived to spawn themselves.
Under the ice about 6 years ago there was a huge perch dieoff. There was no CSI done on them but speculations were some kind of fishy virus. That really put a dent in the food supply for the smallies. By the time for smallies to spawn the next year, a lot of them had starved out...or died of natural causes at the end of their life cycles. And with no food for the smaller smallies they never made it over the hump to teen-incher status.
The perch have been slowly coming back. And with them the smallies have had more to eat and there are a few larger ones showing up. But the big problem is that the yearling smallies...under 6 inches long...raid the schools of new perch hatchlings...like they do at Deer Creek. Thousands of baby perch are sucked up before they ever reach fingerling size. And those that survive to 1 1/2" yearlings are eaten by the trout as well as the smallies...and by their own adult perch. Tough to be a baby perch in Jordanelle.
The problem has never been that people are keeping all the big fish. There are just no big fish to catch.
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