I tried Jordanelle to day and got in to the big world class bass we have at Jordanelle now..
And some pictures of them and of the spear fisherman I seen one picture of each group..
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Nice fish! How many did ya get total? Mind sharing what you were using?
I think what he means is Jordanelle used to be a borderline world class smallmouth lake, and now it has declined considerably..Some who fish that lake a ton have told me it is nowhere what it was even 3 years ago…
Looks like mostly Eaters if you follow the Regs.
Sorry didn’t catch the internet sarcasm… that’s too bad about the lake, what did the DWR do 3 years ago that has affected it so much? Or is it just the natural cycle of ecology? Kind of like the Stripers in Powell?
Why do you persist in blaming DWR for Jordanelle being in a down cycle? In the years after the lake first filled, it went through a period of great abundance of small chubs and baby perch for the smallmouth to eat…and they did eat…and grew big. Then the smallmouth and browns ate up all the chubs and a lot of the perch. When the big perch dieoff happened about 3 years ago a lot of the big bass began to disappear too. DWR has had nothing to do with those factors and you are foolish to keep blaming them.
There is not a big crawdad population in Jordanelle to sustain a “world class” smallmouth fishery. They have only perch and chubs to eat. As long as those numbers are low there will not be as many big bass.
You need to have shorter arms if you want the bass to look bigger.
I like your last saying XD “You need to have shorter arms if you want the bass to look bigger.” Thats just funny.
I can feel your frustration through your post. I have never met a catch and release spear fisherman.
Looks like you were catching lot of little ones, Cliff. Sad to see the decline of that lake.
They ever find the cause of the mercury getting into the lake?
Mining. The hills above Jordanelle are riddled with old mines…and mercury was a major material used in the recovery of gold. Lots of other “leftovers” from mining on both sides of the mountains…including Tibble Fork and American Fork streams. Some have unhealthy amounts of arsenic too.
But it wasn’t mercury that killed off all the perch. The general consensus is that it was a disease that hit both Jordanelle and Rockport about the same time. Both went from major perch ponds to almost nothing during the same winter. And there were tons of dead perch…of all sizes…when the ice blew off in the spring. Took the seagulls and coyotes several days to clean them up.
Funny Joke. One 23 inch fish one year doesn’t mean Utah was every close to being a world class SM Bass fishery. Quit your whining and do something about it - like move 1500 miles east and a little south. Either that or buy or build a big lake and start your own world class SM bass fishery in Utah. Apparently not much to it even in high altitude lakes. I’m sure you’ll recoup the millions needed to do that with people willing to pay you to fish a world class SM bass fishery in Utah. Expect a timely report back in about 5-7 years on how DWR was so wrong.
The biggest one I have caught out of around 40 so far has been 14". I can do the same at Deer Creek. Something tells me that the big guys are in there though and if I keep at it I will start to figure out how to catch a few. Sure are tons of 10-12" in there right now. Spear fishing for trophy fish does suck though.
cliff i would point the finger at the meat hunters… With their freezer over flowing with freezer burnt fish … more then the DWR remember cliff utah is a put and take state
untill 80% fishermen&women change the state will remain the same..
cliff in utah the fish dont matter to the dwr they could care less its all about the might dollar
good hell i don"t know if you read the paper. It was a few weeks ago the dwr put out a small publication blaming the coyote for the deer population in utah.. it couldn’t of been the miss management of 90% of all the big game or the 100,000,000 tags sold every year.. or all the over building in the deer winter range..
Now im sure some horses a$ is going to post some stupid statistic about the coyote and killing deer
Its not the sole fault of the DWR a large part of it falls upon the hands of fishermen who just got to keep that damn 7 to 10 year old bass.
just because its legal does not mean its right…
Did you see what kind of harpoons those guys were using?
I’m personally angered about everyone blaming the DNR. The natural order of fishing is boom and bust. As for Jordanelle being world class… That is like saying Utah can have a world class largemouth population. It can’t happen. Natural ecology prevents it. Wrong climate. Wrong amount of rain, wrong amount of water usage, wrong amount of spear fishermen, wrong kind of bait, wrong regulations.
Did anybody ever think Jordanelle was being managed pretty well with the meager amount of money alloted? Pretty good facilties considering usage? And as far as what is legal... Spear fishing is legal. I for one don't mind it. But proof the reservoir is not doing so bad is in the size of fish they take. Not in the size of fish you catch. You would probably love to manage, down to the fish, the take on the reservoir. Dam the cost of someone doing that... Not to mention look at the pressure put on that lake by how many fisherman? Lucky to have fish at all. Amazing how many fish that lake puts out at all considering it's acreage.
Biologists most of us are not. Blaming the lack of fish because of spear fisherman? Only one small calculation in the great equation that is still a guess.
I’m with you Cliff.
I used to catch many more big bass from J when before the bass limit was changed to allow 1 big fish to be kept. But change it they did and now the big fish that are caught are being kept.
As for the spear fishers, they are a bunch of greedy trophy hunters, just look at what they did to the spawning lakers in Fish lake a few years ago. They’ll go away when they have killed all the trophies.
These regulations were enacted by the DWR, so it is their fault for the decline, anyone who can’t see that doesn’t fish J much, like the guy with the blue print.
Cliff on the other hand fishes J alot, and knows more about it than about any other fisher in UT.
Really?
The DWR is a department of the DNR. The DNR manages the water, lands, and park. Fishermen are a small part of the equation. Fishermen fuel a relatively small part of the economics behind “water” in Utah.
Last year the DWR changed the limit on bass on some lakes, Jordanelle was only one of them..
In years past (two) on a day like today I would have caught and released 50 to 75 bass from 12" to 20+" at Jordanelle..
Now the limit is one over 12" and 5 under with the spear fisherman also taking them..
Today I caught 26 the biggest at 12" 1/4" most was under 10" ..
I said this would happen when they (DWR) said they wanted to change the limit…
Some say its a cycle but if the limits was not changed the big bass would still be in the lake and even on bad years the bass would keep going..