02-27-2013, 08:03 PM
[quote cpierce]I ran across this on another forum and wanted to share it with those that may not have seen it. Impressive effort by F&G guys!
" Many of you may be surprised to hear the facts and once you have you might lend them a 'tip of your hat' to their efforts the next time you meet an IDFG officer.
Here are some facts, verbatim from Martin Koenig Regional Fisheries Biologist Southwest Region:
"Cascade Reservoir has a long and storied history, which I don’t know that well. But, I will try to summarize the more recent efforts. Yellow perch have been in Cascade since probably the 1920’s. Historically, there was excellent perch fishing, but it declined big time in the 1990’s.... "[/quote]
It may interest everyone to know that Cascade dam was not built in the 1920's. Construction started in 1942, and was halted due to WWII. It started again in 1946, was completed in 1948, and the reservoir did not fill completely until the spring of 1950. I am not trying to belittle the efforts of the F&G, but 30 years is a huge time discrepancy.
As far as limits, what we need to do, and how the F&G manages this water, My ideas are a little different. I have seen several lakes in this area suffer the affects of overpopulation when it comes to perch. Lost Valley is a prime example. The massive fish die offs that the perch population suffered, including the fish kill that required the city of cascade to bury tons of dead perch so the smell didn't ruin the 4th of July celebration in 1998. I am fairly certain the Pikeminniws didn't kill all those fish. I am fairly certain some disease, bolstered by the overpopulation of those fish, caused the fish kill. Additionally, fish in that lake compete for each other for limited food. That food base is constant. You add 2 million perch, it is sustainable, but at 40million, it is not. If you want to see sustained numbers of large perch, you need to harvest them hard. Each female perch produces up to 50,000 eggs. even at 1/2 % survival to adult, that is still a 25 adults. It does not take long for a population of fish at growth rates like this to blow right past carrying capacity and either stunt, or suffer a catastrophic disease or parasite outbreak. Limits on yellow perch are great in a developing fishery. Once the population is established, hevy predation is required to keep average size up to the "jumbo" level.
Those of you that are principaled and self impose limits on big fish, good on you. I trust the F&G biologists to manage the fishery as well as they have, and leave the limits off. Remember that once the population is over carrying capacity, it will take a lot of Rotenone (probably more than is currently available) to kill ff the lake and start over, and that would be catastrophic to the other fisheries in that lake.
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" Many of you may be surprised to hear the facts and once you have you might lend them a 'tip of your hat' to their efforts the next time you meet an IDFG officer.
Here are some facts, verbatim from Martin Koenig Regional Fisheries Biologist Southwest Region:
"Cascade Reservoir has a long and storied history, which I don’t know that well. But, I will try to summarize the more recent efforts. Yellow perch have been in Cascade since probably the 1920’s. Historically, there was excellent perch fishing, but it declined big time in the 1990’s.... "[/quote]
It may interest everyone to know that Cascade dam was not built in the 1920's. Construction started in 1942, and was halted due to WWII. It started again in 1946, was completed in 1948, and the reservoir did not fill completely until the spring of 1950. I am not trying to belittle the efforts of the F&G, but 30 years is a huge time discrepancy.
As far as limits, what we need to do, and how the F&G manages this water, My ideas are a little different. I have seen several lakes in this area suffer the affects of overpopulation when it comes to perch. Lost Valley is a prime example. The massive fish die offs that the perch population suffered, including the fish kill that required the city of cascade to bury tons of dead perch so the smell didn't ruin the 4th of July celebration in 1998. I am fairly certain the Pikeminniws didn't kill all those fish. I am fairly certain some disease, bolstered by the overpopulation of those fish, caused the fish kill. Additionally, fish in that lake compete for each other for limited food. That food base is constant. You add 2 million perch, it is sustainable, but at 40million, it is not. If you want to see sustained numbers of large perch, you need to harvest them hard. Each female perch produces up to 50,000 eggs. even at 1/2 % survival to adult, that is still a 25 adults. It does not take long for a population of fish at growth rates like this to blow right past carrying capacity and either stunt, or suffer a catastrophic disease or parasite outbreak. Limits on yellow perch are great in a developing fishery. Once the population is established, hevy predation is required to keep average size up to the "jumbo" level.
Those of you that are principaled and self impose limits on big fish, good on you. I trust the F&G biologists to manage the fishery as well as they have, and leave the limits off. Remember that once the population is over carrying capacity, it will take a lot of Rotenone (probably more than is currently available) to kill ff the lake and start over, and that would be catastrophic to the other fisheries in that lake.
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