05-26-2016, 02:46 AM
And on we go. [
] Cliff does not disappoint with his "not state the hole truth .." I suppose that the "hole truth" is the truth according to Cliff. Same as it ever was.
On a serious note, there has been some good discussion on some topics this afternoon and I figured I'd share my inflation adjusted 2 cents. After all, I'm one of the few anglers that has kept fishing there after things went South a bit and have't had the sense to fish elsewhere for 13 years. . I've also helped the DWR with gillnetting and can share an item or two.
1. As K2 mentioned, there are still a number of chubs in Jordanelle. Virtually all of them are large and very old. It looked like k2 had one smaller one in her batch, we had 1 smaller chub in about a hundred bigguns. The chubs are big enough to be caught on a 4 inch senko. (done it several times) These fish are all fairly old and probably over halfway through their 20-25 year life cycle. They do contribute to the forage base with their offspring, either directly by bass eating the fry or more likely, by perch eating chub fry and then being in turn consumed by bass. These big chubs do no harm and will live out their days, but they won't be replaced. Both perch and smallies are chub Kryptonite. It is a virtual impossibility to remove enough perch or smallies to allow the chubs to return, unless you either drain the reservoir or treat it. Neither will happen.
2. As was mentioned, the perch were apparently illegally introduced. This happened fairly early on when Jordanelle was filling and by 2003, when I moved back to the state, the perch population was at an astronomical number. They weren't put in there in 2003-4 as was stated. The perch and smallie populations expanded together somewhat, but when the perch were at extreme numbers in the early 2000's, I think the perch inhibited bass recruitment a little, which may have sounded bad, but in retrospect was a good thing. Shortly after the perch crashed from their peak numbers, the smallie population took off and the average size dropped.
3. You guys have been arguing about what the bass are eating. Here is what I can share. First, when I helped with gillnetting, I spent a little extra time with the DWR team in processing the catch, including stomach content analysis. The results were as follows. Smallies up to about 7-8 inches had zooplankton in their stomachs. They also had some minnows as well. However, bass over about 8 inches had exclusively perch in their stomachs. No exceptions in this study. Perhaps the spring gillnetting would yield different results, but it does appear that mature smallies in Jordanelle are dependent fairly exclusively on perch. This corresponds with 13 years of fishing experience where I have had about a thousand perch minnows barfed on me and my float tube and as far as I can remember nothing else, except an odd senko or plastic grub or two.
4. With this in mind, it explains a lot of things that have and are happening at Jordanelle. First, when the perch crashed after the bass population exploded in 2008-10, we saw the small bass persist, but the 11-14 inchers became thin and died off. For a couple of years, I was still getting healthy bigguns, (these were probably eating either large perch or chubs or eating finless freddie planter trout) but eventually these slowly died off too due to age or harvest. This also explains what has happened in the last few years when the lake has been full of stunted dinks. The bass are still reproducing and quickly grow to about 7-8 inches by eating zooplankton, but then hit the bottleneck at 8-11 inches and limp along and stay at that size because there isn't enough perch fry food to push them over the top to a larger size. Except for last year, many of these fish were thin. Last year, we saw growth in all phases and an emerging class of 12-14 inchers. Why? Because it seems we had a partial spawning failure in the smallest class of fish, likely due to the extreme low water. Again, it seems spawning failure isn't a bad thing. I also think some bassers are seeing the light and taking fish out. I know I have.
5. Finally, my opinion on what you guys are arguing about.
a) As I see it, only Cliff is disagreeing that more smallie harvest is needed. There may be disagreements on the particulars, but almost all of us can agree more should be harvested. I will maintain, as I've written before, that the bottleneck and a huge percentage of the population is 8-11 inches and the bulk of the harvest needs to take place here to truly get the numbers down.
b) It is true that a decent perch population is required for good growth to be seen in the smallies. It is also true that if there isn't a reduction in the bottleneck population, there won't be good growth even with a healthy perch population. See, TD and PBH are both right.
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] Cliff does not disappoint with his "not state the hole truth .." I suppose that the "hole truth" is the truth according to Cliff. Same as it ever was. On a serious note, there has been some good discussion on some topics this afternoon and I figured I'd share my inflation adjusted 2 cents. After all, I'm one of the few anglers that has kept fishing there after things went South a bit and have't had the sense to fish elsewhere for 13 years. . I've also helped the DWR with gillnetting and can share an item or two.
1. As K2 mentioned, there are still a number of chubs in Jordanelle. Virtually all of them are large and very old. It looked like k2 had one smaller one in her batch, we had 1 smaller chub in about a hundred bigguns. The chubs are big enough to be caught on a 4 inch senko. (done it several times) These fish are all fairly old and probably over halfway through their 20-25 year life cycle. They do contribute to the forage base with their offspring, either directly by bass eating the fry or more likely, by perch eating chub fry and then being in turn consumed by bass. These big chubs do no harm and will live out their days, but they won't be replaced. Both perch and smallies are chub Kryptonite. It is a virtual impossibility to remove enough perch or smallies to allow the chubs to return, unless you either drain the reservoir or treat it. Neither will happen.
2. As was mentioned, the perch were apparently illegally introduced. This happened fairly early on when Jordanelle was filling and by 2003, when I moved back to the state, the perch population was at an astronomical number. They weren't put in there in 2003-4 as was stated. The perch and smallie populations expanded together somewhat, but when the perch were at extreme numbers in the early 2000's, I think the perch inhibited bass recruitment a little, which may have sounded bad, but in retrospect was a good thing. Shortly after the perch crashed from their peak numbers, the smallie population took off and the average size dropped.
3. You guys have been arguing about what the bass are eating. Here is what I can share. First, when I helped with gillnetting, I spent a little extra time with the DWR team in processing the catch, including stomach content analysis. The results were as follows. Smallies up to about 7-8 inches had zooplankton in their stomachs. They also had some minnows as well. However, bass over about 8 inches had exclusively perch in their stomachs. No exceptions in this study. Perhaps the spring gillnetting would yield different results, but it does appear that mature smallies in Jordanelle are dependent fairly exclusively on perch. This corresponds with 13 years of fishing experience where I have had about a thousand perch minnows barfed on me and my float tube and as far as I can remember nothing else, except an odd senko or plastic grub or two.
4. With this in mind, it explains a lot of things that have and are happening at Jordanelle. First, when the perch crashed after the bass population exploded in 2008-10, we saw the small bass persist, but the 11-14 inchers became thin and died off. For a couple of years, I was still getting healthy bigguns, (these were probably eating either large perch or chubs or eating finless freddie planter trout) but eventually these slowly died off too due to age or harvest. This also explains what has happened in the last few years when the lake has been full of stunted dinks. The bass are still reproducing and quickly grow to about 7-8 inches by eating zooplankton, but then hit the bottleneck at 8-11 inches and limp along and stay at that size because there isn't enough perch fry food to push them over the top to a larger size. Except for last year, many of these fish were thin. Last year, we saw growth in all phases and an emerging class of 12-14 inchers. Why? Because it seems we had a partial spawning failure in the smallest class of fish, likely due to the extreme low water. Again, it seems spawning failure isn't a bad thing. I also think some bassers are seeing the light and taking fish out. I know I have.
5. Finally, my opinion on what you guys are arguing about.
a) As I see it, only Cliff is disagreeing that more smallie harvest is needed. There may be disagreements on the particulars, but almost all of us can agree more should be harvested. I will maintain, as I've written before, that the bottleneck and a huge percentage of the population is 8-11 inches and the bulk of the harvest needs to take place here to truly get the numbers down.
b) It is true that a decent perch population is required for good growth to be seen in the smallies. It is also true that if there isn't a reduction in the bottleneck population, there won't be good growth even with a healthy perch population. See, TD and PBH are both right.
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