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[quote Dog-lover]True planning for a Trophy fishing experience like the Strawberry Cutthroat Hatchery has never permitted this kind of Harvest of the managed species.[/quote]
What about Lake Powell?
What about Jordanelle?
What about numerous Boulder Mountain brook trout lakes that include bonus limits of brook trout?
Harvest (mortality) is a very important part of managing for trophy fish. Sometimes you need more mortality, sometimes you need less.
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If the meaning of management plan requires some fish stocking Powell is out. Limit increases have resulted not due to any management plan directed at better habitat or species introductions to increase or decrease fish numbers.
Not sure what species at Jordanelle has a liberal limit approaching 20 fish that was the result of a management plan. Your not referring to the statewide perch limit.
The Boulders has a bonus of 4 Brook trout from a whopping
3 lakes that no one claims are the result of a successful management plan.
I appreciate your willingness to contribute your knowledge , very educational and enlightening.
Harvest is the bulk of the plan for Powell and the Boulders
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[quote Dog-lover]
The Boulders has a bonus of 4 Brook trout from a whopping
3 lakes that no one claims are the result of a successful management plan.
I appreciate your willingness to contribute your knowledge , very educational and enlightening.
Harvest is the bulk of the plan for Powell and the Boulders[/quote]
Hmmm...the management plan of Powell and Yuba are very similar. The whole point of a liberal harvest of stripers at powell is the hope that fishermen will take enough home that more of the stripers will have enough food to make it through the summer and become big stripers (And you know which stripers especially need to be harvested? All of them!) Doesn't that sound exactly like Yuba? Hopefully, by killing enough of the pike in Yuba more of the small pike will make it to be big pike!
Also, the Boulder Mountain lakes have seen the exact thing we are warning against at Yuba--anglers were so concerned about protecting big brook trout about 15 years ago that regulations were suggested and adopted at RAC meetings that would "limit" the harvest of big fish. What has been the result? Fewer big fish! The problem is that harvest has been so limited that now we have too many fish...luckily, on the Boulder the fix is much easier than at Yuba. The "bulk" of the plan on the Boulders is not harvest, but stocking rates. And, since fishermen have begun harvesting fewer fish, stocking rates will probably be adjusted to keep fish numbers low enough and growth rates high enough to create "trophy" fish.
Also, I would say that some of our slot limits for bass lakes are not doing any good to help grow more big bass....and, in fact, perhaps our best smb waters have no slot limit but a liberal limit of 6 fish!
Quite a few years ago the problem with many of our fisheries was that there was too much harvest and fish were harvested before they could grow big....now that pendulum has swung in the opposite direction and many fishermen are so concerned with releasing fish--especially the "big" fish--that we are often NOT harvesting enough fish!
The harvest component of any fishery is a huge part of any management plan...disregarding that component doesn't make any sense. All fishery management plans take that component into consideration before any regulations are set.
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management plan does NOT equal stocking fish. Stocking fish is only a portion of 1 component of managing a fishery. There are really only four tools used to manage a fishery:
1. Rules and regulations
2. Public relations and education
3. Fish stocking and fish removal
4. Habitat improvement and manipulation
It is quite possible to manage a fishery WITHOUT stocking fish.
So, at Lake Powell for example, limit increases are a DIRECT management plan aimed to decrease fish numbers in an effort to prolong quality fish!
Jordanelle does have a liberal bass limit (6 fish!), and the DWR has continued to try to get it even higher, although anglers continue to fight it because they do not understand basic biology. Protecting the large smallmouth bass in Jordanelle will not help prolong the trophy quality of those fish. Harvest more bass from Jordanelle will help continue producing large bass at Jordanelle. It's the same concept as Yuba.
Attached are two documents that you (dog-lover) should read.
[quote wormandbobber]
Also, the Boulder Mountain lakes have seen the exact thing we are warning against at Yuba--anglers were so concerned about protecting big brook trout about 15 years ago that regulations were suggested and adopted at RAC meetings that would "limit" the harvest of big fish. What has been the result? Fewer big fish! [/quote]
BINGO!
Look at McGath. It is probably the most well known trophy brook trout fishery on the Boulder. Anglers cried "protect the big fish". Selective harvest has been promoted by anglers for a number of years, with the assumption that increased popularity and pressure would harm the "trophy" status of this lake. The anglers wishes have been accepted by other anglers, and harvest rates have been down. Guess what? Population numbers have increased and average size has gone down. The DWR will most likely adjust stocking rates to help compensate for the lower mortality rates to help increase average size and get that quality aspect back. Harvest is need to grow big fish in this fishery, just like at Yuba.
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[quote PBH][quote kentofnsl]...how does planting more walleye in Yuba make any sense from a biological standpoint? If a substantial reduction of pike is essential so that more walleye can be planted I have an issue with that. There are plenty of waters that one can go to catch a walleye and very few waters that have pike.[/quote]
I complete agree. I can't figure out why people want more walleye in Yuba, when we have something special there right now.
Also, maybe I'm mistaken, but is there any plan to actually stock more walleye? Or is the hope that walleye will increase in numbers due to natural reproduction?...
[/quote]
Quoting from the 2013 management plan:
[size 3][/size]
[size 3]Supplement walleye population through out-of-state purchase/trade (prefer 7-8" walleye). [/size]
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I noticed that. I hope it doesn't happen -- but I guess I wasn't part of the committee that drafted the accepted plan either. I guess we'll see what happens with supplemental stocking of walleye.
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i want to point out one other thing on the food base thing here too... carp, perch and Walleye (and yes the pike are eating Walleye too) are not the only things in the lake for pike to eat... the crawdads. sucker, redside shiners, fathead minnows, chub, dace, scolpin, and even guppys from a warm spring not far from the lake all are in there as well.. a long with ducks, mice, frogs, birds and most anything that will fit in the mouth of pike will be munched on..
it's going to be interesting to see what 50,000 perch a year for 3 years will do for the lake.. thats the number they have been throwing around as a target number for next year. and if it works good they hope to do it again the following 2 years after.. that might help fish lake out (by removing a bunch of stunted perch) and yuba out as well by providing a new perch base.. let's hope it works..
i still think it would help Yuba out to plant perch back in the sandpitch drainage as well to keep some perch moving down stream as well.. even if every 4 or 5 years they need to restock do to low water..
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Harvest is the principle tool used at Powell because its the easiest thing. Powell is to big for habitat improvement, water level determined by Mother nature and multi state agreements, federal restraints on any reintroduction, never a real planting effort required or implemented. Only easy thing left are regulations determining how many fish are taken.
No limit regulations have been the result but they are not the result of a Master plans execution.
Yuba and Bolder mountain lakes containing less than 12000 surface acres actually require NO management plan because any plan will never make them become a destination fishery. Yuba in particular is subject to water levels that have always determined the success of the fishery with total disregard to whatever plan or lack of plan was was in force.
The 20 fish daily pike limit at Yuba is simple eradication disguised as a plan. Liberal limits are acceptable for reservoirs that tend to dry up at the water users whim or lakes like the boulders that winter kill on a regular basis. The reasoning for liberal limits at small impoundments are not the same as they are for Powell.
Strawberry has had hundreds of millions of dollars poured into it to become the Cutthroat hatchery that everyone recognizes is the result of a plan. The fish taken under the slot limit guidelines could be fewer than the fish killed due to mortality from regulations allowing the use of bait. Regulations that allow fishermen to harvest are better than regulations that encourage the killing and wasting of the resource.
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