it’s just a thought right now I knoe one day of fishing and bowfishing for them isn’t going to stop them it will take a long while befor they are slowed down to a minimal amount then all the other fishin there can start thriving again there are very pretty bows and cats in there as well as perch the very rare walleye and bass as well if the carp where thined out the other fish could maby take a come back and have a good fisheri again alexander is one of the few places out there that still has good clean water and a great habitat maby just a thought though they should think about putting a preditor fish like pike or muskie somthing bigger and meaner than the carp. Kind of what they did with condie put them in there to just wipe out the pests and leave them in there though instead of removing them south east idaho needs more than one or two healthy clean fisheries.. And I would really like to just get idaho fish and game back on track they have been slacking of alot latley for the past 5 or 6 years really..
jeremy i think the small mouths in there will do just what your saying. i think the problem is that a ton of carp are already over eating size and have to more or less live there life cycle out. maybe this is just wishful thinking, but i hope not. i have kept very few smallies from the bear but the few i have had all had a belly full of carp minnows.
perfect spot for about 50 or so Tiger Muskies? What would be the downfall at this reservoir? Could they possibly get into Bear Lake? Would they?
I’m talkin a couple thousand muski they couldn’t get into bear lake as they would have to make it past the powerplant damn on alexander then past the powerplant damn on onida so them getting into bear lake isn’t really a concern they could go upstream but I don’t think they would go to far the bear river is a pretty big river and they couldn’t go past china hat area because of the waterfalls through there and it gets extreemly shallow inspots even still I think they would stick to the res
So how did the cats get below the res in the river? Ron
there are channle cats all over bear river not just alexander there in onida too and every where inbetween
There are channel cats in onida?
I know that alexander is where they are dumped. How did they get in the other areas? If they can spread out so could other fish like tiger musky’s. Ron
they put some in onida years ago they are just left overs that havnt died off and what survives to adult hood you can catch 10 plus pound cats out of there and there are always sceptics where it doesn’t matter how much proof you show them they still think because they said it it’s true but hey that’s fine idaho fish and game will never do it because they are to lazy just typical joes that are in it for the chek and that’s it
i dont care what the fish and game say the cats and walleye spawn in there… i have wondered if they wont recognize that they spawn because of the bonneville cutthroat conservation.
I am sure you all know this but you can go to the Fish and Game website and it shows all the recorded stocking info and history. Many times over the years they have stocked catfish in the Bear River. They class Bear River and Alexander Reservoir as two seperate waters. I did not see it list any exact locations for the Bear River but with all of the stocking of catfish they list I can not imagine it was all upstream of Alexander.
I think it would be a great place for Tiger Muskie. I wouldn’t think more than 100 to start. They would probably stay in there or at the very least not become a problem if they ventured up or down from there.
I would like to know what anyone else thought of this for sure as I am just guessing and using my vast array of confusing wits to come to this conclusion. I kind of doubt with such a big river for the inlet and outlet of the reservoir that they would consider it much. Hasn’t most of their Tiger Muskie stocking been done in “landlocked” waters?
In my opinion the F&G guys are in a very unenviable position. It is the same whenever you deal with government regulations and the public. Every move they make has to be very carefully mapped out and approved first. They are literally swamped with paper work and studies that have to be done. They have to prioitize and make a lot of compromises, but I don’t think any of them are in it for the pay check. They love the outdoors and want to make a difference. They get paid a “welfare” wage!
They are not going to “officially” recognize a lot of things that they know for fact. Their priorities are pretty much forced on them. You can read the Fisheries Management Plan for the state; it is in force until 2012.
The hoops they are jumping through with the cutthroat are for us. It keeps them from being listed as endangered. The reason they aren’t listed now is because of all of the pro-active work that they and forest service are doing to improve the situation.
The minute cutts are listed, our rights to fish or use much of our public lands (and private) will be in non-local hands, and the feds will call the shots. Our local wants won’t matter anymore. That would affect most of southeastern Idaho. Then non-native fish that are perceived as threats to cutts might be removed from all of the reservoirs in those drainages. (Personally I don’t even think that is possible!)
The problem with stocking the Tigers is probably going to be the cutthroat. The Nounan and Thomas Fork areas of the Bear River have the best fluvial (spawn in streams & return to the river)Cutthroat populations. That is the area right above Alexander. There is no barrier to migration up and down of the cats, carp or any other fish like the TMuskies that they put in there. I don’t think they will consider putting larger preditors in there, but I could be wrong.
Email them and suggest it.
Government? Paperwork? Studies?
I think you are dead on about the guys at Fish and Game. They are in it because they do care and want to be outdoors and such. I do agree with your perception of the unenviable position for sure. I am certain there are many people with Fish and Game that have some great ideas most certainly on the local levels anywhere you go. I think they would do a great job with a common sense approach but in this day and age that can not be done. Their hands are tied and they are limited for many, many reasons from funding to special interests of many kinds.
You sure give one time to think about what would happen to the way they would be forced to manage the waters if the cutthroat became listed as endangered. It actually made me a little scared.
Frankly, it scares me! If we lose our local control, how long do you think it would be until we get it back? Ever?
Looking at previous track records with other species, that prospect would not be good!
Thus the cutthroats have to be a priority on a local level, or we will lose all say and possibly access to most of our favorite areas.
right on pierce… couldnt agree with you more. the days of stock now think later are gone. i highly doubt we will ever see non native species stocked in streams, rivers or lakes that drain areas with the cutts. i would love to fish for the tiger muskies as well as many other species that would be great in the bear river but the cutts must come first. The day they get placed on the endangered species list we are going to loose alot of fishing area. i worry they will stop planting bows in many areas that they now do.
point made and I understand this so why don’t they try a rationle means of eradicating the other fish that are over bearing the water way like the carp I mean they have talked about poisening it but that would hurt more than just one speicies it would affect them all and the habitat… I went to one of the main cutthroat hatcheries in my area in grace and they by no means in an endangerd state not even close go to say they have thousands of them that they are sceduled to release everymonth in various places and if they where to worried they would stricken the catch on them and make them an imediat release… Also just a thought if survival after release is a question to them why don’t they wait tell they are biger than fingerlings to release wait tell they are big enough to fend for them selfs the survival would jump I think alot if they did this and they would have a better chance of living long enough to spawn a couple times in there life… Also on the muskie I really don’t think they would do to much harm and just a side note they stock them in pineview in utah and they are not any where but there they are not in causey up stream and there not below the damn on the ogden river and it feeds bolth them as well as willard bay and there not there as well I think they would stay localized they may wander some but they stay prety localized for the most part … But hey I do enjoy reading every ones opinions and thoughts as we all have different opinions it is nice to have them put into one area fo reading ..
I don’t really have a different opinion on the problem. I would love to see the carp gone from this area of the Bear River drainage as well as the mess they have made of the Blackfoot Res.
I don’t think poisoning would work as the carp are so prolific and infest the river all of the way up to Bear Lake. More would just move back in from the river. It is really expensive to poison a water and would be a huge waste of money on an effort that would only reduce them temporally.
You are right in that more predators are needed to reduce their numbers. What I was pointing out is that I think that F&G’s hands are tied on introducing new species. And maybe it will come down to where we seek Federal funding to net the carp as they are doing in Utah Lake. They used the June Sucker recovery as their excuse, maybe the cutts would work for us, but I am afraid they would have to be listed first. Or maybe not, I really don’t know.
Meantime – carp fests are a great idea. Carp are a blast to catch! The more that anglers and bowfishermen can remove — the better. I would love to see a bounty being put on them, not that I know who would finance that!!
I truly wish that there was a market or private enterprise that would utilize them. They are great fertilizer or animal feed.
A focused and continuous effort is the only thing that is going to fix the problem in the long term.
I just wanted to throw a couple things in here.
First of all bad mouthing the fish and game is not the way to get things done, as it has been stated their hands are tied with alot of things.
secondly throwing the carp up on the bank gives our sport a huge black eye to the general public that may not understand the reasoning behind it. Also it leaves a stinking mess behind that noone likes. Not to mention i’m pretty sure that regardless the reason it is considered littering and you can be fined for it.
In my opinion the best option we have is to work with the fish and game on making and executing a plan that doesn’t affect the other species in the bear river system. This might take some of us volunteering our time and effort for the cause.
It isn’t the number of fish in a hatchery that will keep the cutts from being listed. It is how many populations in the drainages are self-sustaining.
The cutthroats at the Grace Hatchery are a fairly new expansion, that was started a few years ago. They have taken them from a small stream that had a remnant population, and now have enough breeders to begin putting them back in the the local streams. Before they can do that they have to fix the streams and reconnect them to the river.
Some have to have non-native species removed or reduced. Some have to have culverts fixed in order for the fish to spawn on their own again. But by far the largest number of problems comes from unscreened irrigation, irrigation dewatering, grazing damage, and atv damage. It will take a lot of cooperation with many people involved.
They have successfully fixed Fish Haven Creek at Bear Lake. They and the irrigators association have fixed most of the problems with the Thomas Fork tributaries. They have fixed some of the main problems with Georgetown Creek. They have fixed some of the spawn tributaries of Henry’s Lake, and the list goes on.
The point I am trying to make is that as the spawning areas are fixed and reconnected to the Bear River and other areas, then hopefully the large cutts will return to the Bear River. I think they will be a predator that will start to make a dent in the carp population, but it may take some thinning of the old large carp first, and raising some of the cutts to a large size before putting them in.
ok first of I’m not bad mouthing any one simply stateing the obvious and if you would read some of the other posts you would see that wi said they need garbage disposel of them and no it isn’t considered littering… Any way all these points about the cutthroat are very clear and as I said in a earlier post why don’t they start putting them in as juvinels instead of fry so they have a higher survival rate as any fisher man knows when they are released as fry they have no fighting chance to survive the trout the bas the cats the carp all of these fish eat fry as a food source… What I am trying to say is if it is as big as a problem as it is being potraid as then why don’t they try and clean the water ways of the trash first and start putting in larger sized cutts that can fend for them selfs … The reason I say bad of the fish and game is I have yet to deal with one that even knows anything aout what he is doing other than what a text book tells him to do none of the ones in the banock feild hhave feild and life training rather colledge training text book and that’s it … Which is a pluss sure but if they don’t know even where or what the fish are other than what there told how are they helping the matter… I know there are some out there that actually fish and hunt but about 75 percent of them don’t … And they all get there orders from a bunch of big wigs that sit in there nice cozy office all day with there fancy suit and tie all day where the closest they get to the out doors of any kind is when they step out side to get in there car to drive to and from there office.. This is just my personal experience ..