Pearch planting enviromental crime?

Utah Fishing Reports & Discussion Utah Fishing General
21

ok so what your saying is your a slime rockit lover? you would like nothing more than to have trout in every water in the state and nothing else? well thats stone age thinking.. there is a lot more to fishing than slime rockits.. and i say thanks to the DWR for starting to realize that and do more to plant better suted fish in our fisherys!!

and i say thaks to some of our friend out there with buckits (or live wells) that put fish in lakes that need a bost or just something differnt to fish for.. you guy’s got big ones made of brass that much i can say for you!!

dude on fish--------------------lol

22

Man, I love introduced species! If none were ever introduced in Utah, what would I be able to catch in the Jordan river? Chubs, suckers and maybe the occasional cutthroat? As it is, I’m able to get perch, walleye, channels, mudders, LMB, blue gills, browns, rainbows, and carp, all in one trip!!! I personally love the perch. They are one of the best eating fish in the entire state. Have you ever caught a great big bass??? Or, better yet, how about a huge channel? Their funner to catch than any trout would ever be, except maybe a 5+ pound brown. Even the gastly carp are a blast to catch. If this state were only trout, what would we have? About 10 fisheries in the state. Its kind of hard for fish to grow big when there’s only 10 places to fish, I’ll tell you what. I would strongly support the addition of more warm water species to the state. There’s gotta be a few species the fish and game havn’t tried yet.

23

The way I see it, the problem with these “Bucket Biologists” it that they think they know more than the rest of us, including the fisheries biologists running the show. DWR may have their share of problems, but face it, they have studied “fish” a whole lot more than the rest of us and I think they have done a pretty good job getting the best out of our waters, especially of late. Everyone plays the coach when watching a ball game and badmouths his decisions, but if we were that good, we would be getting the big bucks and not him. There is a lot more to the biology of our fishing waters than most of us will ever comprehend. (No I don’t work for DWR). I for one am thankful I can fish for multiple species, but would be the first one to turn in a guy doing illegal planting. leave it up to the experts.

24

If you have ever done any kind of research look at studies of predator-prey cycles. They show that in a pristine enviorment that wildlife moves in boom and bust cycles by nature.

What the widlife managers do is try to make the booms longer and the busts shorter but like you have stated, nature is enevitable.

And by the way you talk about the money wasted, have you ever seen a price tag for cleaning a water like Utah Lake it far exceeds what is spent on warm water species. But hey most the money is spent on trout stocking anyway.

25

I agree jensen kid,

i love taking my little bro out to utah lake on the dikes and just tossing out a little jig or worm.. you never know what you will catch. it is such an awsome fishery..whol wouldnt want that? just my opinion of course..

JOe

26

another prime example is fish lake weather the perch were planted illegally or not is not the point they are there now and the lake trout are starving because the perch are eating the chub roe, lake trout do not eat perch and there natural food(chubs) are mostly gone. someone messed up big time pointing fingers is pointless, we need to work together with the dwr to do what is best for the lakes. yes catching perch is fun for all but they don’t need to be in every lake in the state.

27

I remember the days when anything other than trout were considered trash fish to most Utah fisherman some of that mentallity still exist today. I can say when I was a kid fishing with Grandpa that we had the same view. I still love to fish for Trout in a variety of ways but I would prefer to nail a wiper than any trout of comparable size. How about watching a smallie or large hit your top water plug. hooking into a large channel or finesing a walleye into sucking in a worm on a harness or drop shot. I haven’t even tried for the tigers yet but you can bet I plan on it. I guess you could have a few good trout lakes and fill the rest of them with planter rainbows that die off every year. My hats off to the DWR for keeping the sport new and exciting, I love the variety and don’t understand the problems you see with managing the habitat. yeah the illegal stockings present problems but I have enjoyed success at alot of different fisheries all year long. Maybe I missing the big picture but I love the fishing oppurtunities I have in my own back yard! Oh yeah cook all your perch they’re better than trout. see ya on the water!

28

What a bunch of lip service introduced species most if not all but 1 or 2 game fish of the this state are introduce by man and most if not all the native fishes will be gone for good before our lifetime is up because of man’s dams and wanting to control the waterways not by any perch. Nobody has said word about the carp (Carp are from Asia) which was brought here in hand carts by the founders of this state for food. Which do more damage to lakes than any little old picked on perch will ever do (LOL). FishinA some of the trout your after are not native to our country let alone this state. Utah spends a grip of $$$ planting stinky A trout for you and yours every year. Chill out dude. All those perch keep some of the pressure off of your precious trout.

29

[reply]I want long term healthy fisheries. That starts with habitat quality. Manage the habitat. [/reply]
FishinA,

Sure we all want long term healthy fisheries, but do you know that walleyes and perch have their natural cycle where there’s a year or two where they crash, and then eventually builds itself back up. Nothing we can do about that BUT, it would be great if DWR can coordinate the year of the crash of a certain lake, then provide for another lake or two to offset the crash for that year, this way to ensure walleyes and perch to be available.

I would love to see more walleye lakes here in Utah… I am jealous of the folks back east and the midwest because of their many walleye lakes. I am sure there are other avid 'eye folks would be equally jealous as well. If Utah had maybe four more big walleye lakes then PWT would be hosting their tournaments here and I would love to be in there! I know that Tom Pettigill would be in the tourney too! (He’s a former PWT):sunglasses:

30

First I hate illegal stocking. Second I hate the trout only mentality.

When we had to close Midway hatchery due to whirling disese (thanks Levitts and DWR) why wasn’t it run as a Muskie or Walleye hathery? Don’t kill strawberry, net bout a million of the chubs and shiners and throw them over the dam to go to Starvation.

Face it we live in a warm desert, manage what lives here best.

31

gshadow how much do you fish fish lake? the perch have been there for 15 to 20 years now.. and the lake trout have not sufferd in any big way!! you say that lake trout dont eat perch?? where do you get that info? all the lake trout in the great lakes and cannada dont have a problm eating perch!! so why would the lakers in fisk lake have a problm eating perch??? and if you fished there at all the last wile there is no problm with the chub in fish lake ether there is still a lot of them in there along with suckers too.. the lake trout fishing has always be tuff at fish lake yeah they are in there and there is some 20 + lbs fish in there.. but you dont see them cought to often not because of the perch it’s becaus they are hard to catch… even in my grand pops days it was hard to catch them and my dads days it was hard to catch them and today it is hard to catch them!!! it not that they are not there just getting one to hit is a whole different story.. it been that way for years at fish lake and has not changed with the perch being in there..

dude on fish

32

Wow…where should I begin? First of all, as was already mentioned, perch and walleye are not warmwater species. They do best in cold deep lakes. The problem with these kinds of fish is that they are their own worst enemy–they are able to reproduce very easily and their numbers often increase to the point that they are no longer able to grow. The good thing about them is that they are able to provide an alternative fishing opportunity to trout. Interestingly, Utah has more “warmwater” fishing opportunities than “coldwater” or trout if you look at total water.

As for the perch in Fish Lake and their existence with lake trout…well, lake trout will and do eat perch in Fish Lake…but, the problem with perch there, though, is that they do not ihabit very much area outside of the weeds where lake trout live. The perch are not nearly as good of a forage fish in Fish Lake as the chubs were (the chub population has totally crashed at Fish Lake since perch numbers have gone up–perch feed on the small chub fry). The big lake trout (and they are there just lake they always have been) not only eat the available perch, but they also eat many small rainbows.

Personally, I have a major problem with bucket biologists…in my opinion, they have totally screwed up many fisheries in Utah. Why can’t fishermen leave wildlife management up to the trained professionals…why do they always think they know more? It is just as stupid as having heart surgery done by the local auto mechanic.

33

A more appropriate analogy is an auto mechanic just deciding you need a new heart without consulting you and then proceeding to drug you and do the surgery without your consent.

34

This is also for Fuzzy – have either of you seen the study done on Fish Lake lake trout done by the DWR? I have a paper copy of it at home. It is very interesting. Lake do eat perch…but not very many! In the samples taken, very, very few lake trout over 25" (up to 40") had any perch at all in their stomachs. Almost all had rainbow trout. Wormandbobber has eluded to the reason for this already. It’s not that the lake trout don’t eat them, it’s just that the perch are in a different area than the big lakers. Those hogs aren’t heading into the weeds very often to eat perch. They are just heading up and grabbing a rainbow when they need to. Wormandbobber also is correct concerning the chubs. The perch have decimated the chub population, which has resulted in the lake trout feeding primarily on rainbow trout. Fish Lake has a very good population of small lake trout (up to 20") and a very good population of lake trout over 30". The problem is in between. Why aren’t they there? Because the smaller lake trout have a hard time converting over to a fish diet. They have to become a piscivorous fish in order to get big, and those small lakers just don’t have the chub population to feed on to get over the hump and really pack on the weight…

Bucket biologists are bad, bad, bad. They do much more harm than they ever do good. The big concern here is not with sport fish (although they could be very harmfull also), but with nongame fish. Chubs, shiners, perch (I considere perch bait…not game), carp, suckers…heck, any fish someone would consider using as live bait…

35

Let’s switch gears a little bit, back east they use live baits without problems but, why is that a problem here?

I have noticed the top of the line boats like Lund, Trackers sold here in Utah come equipped with livewells and they are useless here in the state of Utah. Kinda silly, so that’s why I bought my Tracker Pro Angler that does not come with a live well as it is silly to pay another three or four hundred dollars for something illegal and useless in Utah…

36

So you want native fisheries! Lets take them trout hatcheries moneyand divy it up to native species. Lets see Cutthrout Trout (Colorado river and Bonnevile Cuttthroat of which the Bear Lake Cutthroat is a strain of, and Yellowstone Cutthroat) Razorback Sucker, Bonytail, Humpback Chub, Colorado Pikeminnow, June Sucker, Utah Sucker, Utah Chub, Bonneville Cisco, Mountain Whitefish, Bonneville Whitefish and Bear Lake Whitefish. So with eleven native non cutthroat species to raise in hatcheries it would cut the beloved trout fisheries to nothing. With this return to native fish we poison all waters to rid them of non native species. Then with so many people fishing for trout they would have no chance to grow up and all we would have in our waters would be so called trash fish. Then no one would buy any license because they (the DWR) had ruined the fisheries. In turn the hatchery budget would get cut. Oh and I forgot to return to a native state all non indians would have to leave this state also. But wait the Indians also immagrated to Utah too. Woulnt this be a wonderful native place then. HAHAHA. I think i like it the way it is even with a few flaws.

John

37

fuzzy I’m refering to the same report that pbh is. the perch have devastated the chub population in fish lake. and the lake trout are starving. call and talk to the dwr biologiest for that region. and yes I fish at fish lake all the time and have for years. I know lake trout are hard to catch. Wow I’m agreeing with pbh,LOL PBH has alot of good views, and brings up alot of good dicutions. We all have our views on how to manage lakes but we need to leave it to the experts, but we also need to make input on how we would like to see things done. they do listen if there are facts to back them up. we stoped the poisoning of one of the best brooke trout lakes on the boulder with good input and proof to suport what we were saying.

38

well let me ask you two well informed guy’s this then.. what did that roport that you say you have say about the efect that the tiger mussky in fish lake will have on the chub population???

dude on fish

39

Fuzzy – Tiger Musky were planted in Johnson Res. There is a diversion in the stream between the two lakes to try to prevent fish from moving from one lake to the other. This doesn’t stop all fish (as we already know). There were a very limited number of Musky stocked in Johnson Res. How many do you think actually showed up in Fish Lake? Not very many. They are also sterile, which means that they will not reproduce. So, let me ask you a question. How many do you think showed up in Fish Lake? maybe 100? I doubt that many. How much effect do you really think those fish will do to a population of chubs (which are already desimated, so lets use perch)? I can’t see any effects at all.

But, the report is on the Lake trout population, not the chub, perch, or musky population…so all of that is just my own opinion…

Here is the abstract from the study that was done from 1989-2002. It was released in 2003:

"

Fish Lake is one of the most popular sport fisheries in the state, supporting three resort marinas and drawing thousands of anglers annually. Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) were first stocked in Fish Lake in 1900, and while other species are more readily caught, the possibility of catching a trophy fish draws many anglers to the lake each year. Concern about the status and future of the lake trout population arose when a decline in the abundance of forage fish became apparent in the mid-1980s. The catch of Utah chubs (Gila atraria) and rainbow trout (Oncorhyncus mykiss), the traditional forage of lake trout in Fish Lake, declined to their lowest recorded levels in the early 1990s. As a result, a study was initiated to determine the cause of these declines and document the current status of the lake trout population. Estimates of lake trout abundance, exploitation, growth rates, and food habits were generated. Lake trout in Fish Lake are relatively abundant, while primary forage species (Utah chub and rainbow trout) are limited. Chub numbers declined following an illegal introduction of yellow perch, and rainbow trout are limited by annual stocking. Smaller lake trout (<20 inches) consume primarily aquatic insects, while larger individuals (>20 inches) convert to a fish diet (primarily rainbow trout). However, it is clear that many lake trout do not convert to a fish diet and remain smaller sizes compared to their piscivorus counterparts. In addition, smaller lake trout exhibited low condition, while larger fish displayed high condition. The relatively high number of lake trout and limited forage created a bottleneck where few fish are found between 21 and 28 inches. To reach larger sizes, lake trout must convert to a piscivorus diet. Individual fish that squeeze through this bottleneck quickly grow to trophy size. However, many smaller lake trout remain on invertebrate diets for their entire lives, some reaching old age…"

coincidentally, last weekend (20th of March) I caught an 18" Lake trout from Fish Lake. It had a right pelvic fin clip. I inquired about the fin clip out of curiosity. I was told that the righ pelvic clipped lake trout in Fish Lake are about 11 years old…a 19" fish that was over 11 years old!! I was also told that there are many 40" right pelvic fin cipped lake trout in
Fish Lake that are the same age…some fish just never make the transition. Would this be an easier conversion if perch were not in the lake, and chubs were plentiful?

I attached a pdf file showing the diets of lake trout sampled…very interesting…

40

thanks PBH for answering that one. as I said I do not have a copy of the report have only read it.