11-08-2010, 12:56 AM
[cool][#0000ff]I have fished quite a few waters...still and moving...around the country in which the rainbows foraged heavily on minnows. That includes the Snake River in Idaho. Used to fish it a lot as a kid and I would catch small sucker minnows on a piece of worm and then sail them out into the deeper holes on a bigger hook. Got both big cutts and bows on them.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Here in Utah almost all the rainbows feed on chubs, suckers, whitefish fry, fathead minnows, redside shiners...and even trout hatchlings. They are especially predatory on young-of-the-year perchlets in several of our lakes. Many of the bows we catch through the ice are full of perch fry. But the other food resources are not too plentiful in our unfertile waters during the winter so they gotta make a livin' somehow.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A few years ago, right after the "BIG DROUGHT" of the early 2000s, Yuba Reservoir was completely drained at low water to complete some work on the dam. That eliminated all of the perch and most of the walleyes and pike...a few of which survived upstream in the Sevier River. When the lake refilled after a heavy winter snowpack, DWR planted a bunch of rainbows to provide a fishery until the other warm water species could make a comeback. Good move. Without predators in Yuba the fathead minnows from the Sevier River had exploded and the lake was full of them. The rainbows glutted on them and grew fast...16 to 18"ers in a year...and 24 to 26 inchers by the end of the next year. There were some 4 to 8 pound "steelhead" coming out of Yuba...fattened on fathead minnows. They actually boiled on minnow schools and any fish kept usually had several fatheads in the stomach.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Then the perch population exploded, they ate all the fatheads and the growing pike population ate all the rainbows. Sad story. The point is that rainbows WILL eat minners and do well on them.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Here in Utah almost all the rainbows feed on chubs, suckers, whitefish fry, fathead minnows, redside shiners...and even trout hatchlings. They are especially predatory on young-of-the-year perchlets in several of our lakes. Many of the bows we catch through the ice are full of perch fry. But the other food resources are not too plentiful in our unfertile waters during the winter so they gotta make a livin' somehow.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A few years ago, right after the "BIG DROUGHT" of the early 2000s, Yuba Reservoir was completely drained at low water to complete some work on the dam. That eliminated all of the perch and most of the walleyes and pike...a few of which survived upstream in the Sevier River. When the lake refilled after a heavy winter snowpack, DWR planted a bunch of rainbows to provide a fishery until the other warm water species could make a comeback. Good move. Without predators in Yuba the fathead minnows from the Sevier River had exploded and the lake was full of them. The rainbows glutted on them and grew fast...16 to 18"ers in a year...and 24 to 26 inchers by the end of the next year. There were some 4 to 8 pound "steelhead" coming out of Yuba...fattened on fathead minnows. They actually boiled on minnow schools and any fish kept usually had several fatheads in the stomach.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Then the perch population exploded, they ate all the fatheads and the growing pike population ate all the rainbows. Sad story. The point is that rainbows WILL eat minners and do well on them.[/#0000ff]
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