Dude it takes a year or more for a fish to grow even a few inches. When you go fishing one day and take home some monster fish, that just created a year or more times worth required for some medium-large fish to get to that point. Not to mention that the one that’s going to “fill” the others larger size some day would get to be that big anyway! As far as lakes like Jordanelle are concerned, none of us know what’s going on. A) Maybe big ones are in there and people just aren’t catching them. B) Maybe people are keeping to many bigger ones and like i’ve already explained it takes substantial amounts of time for them fish to grow to that size.
New lakes have nice fish at the beginning because they usually stock them with larger ones. Lakes like the the Boulder Mountains have crap loads of fish dude. Going into winter before winter kill occurs, there’s TONS of fish. It’s a matter of survival of fittest meaning who was able to find the deepest part of the lake with the best oxygen quality and the best feed.
But Ya go ahead and keep keeping that monster one and telling yourself one will get to that point in no time at all.
And you know this to be fact because…
A past personal experience that relates to this thread - I think. I used to fish a reservoir on a ranch in extreme northeast Wyoming. It was absolutely loaded with 7-8" largemouth bass with the occasional 14-16 incher. A game warden stopped by and, after watching me release a bunch of the smaller ones, he asked me not to put them back. He said those fish were probably 5 or more years old and wouldn’t grow any bigger. He said the environment in that pond was so conducive to bass propagation that the bass were just overwhelming it. I love to eat bass so I told him I’d be more than pleased to take home a mess of the smaller ones. He then told me we were in a catch 22. The limit was 5 and if he caught me with more, he’d have to cite me. Said he didn’t agree with that but he could get in a lot of hot water or even lose his job if he didn’t and his superiors found out. I asked him what I should do with them and he said to leave them on the bank for the numerous foxes, coyotes and eagles. This was about 25 yrs. ago and, I’ve learned that since then, HUMAN TRASH finally left too much trash behind and the rancher just closed the pond to the public.
Name even 1 thing I said thats debatable. Let me guess, years that people are catching more big fish are ones where people are correctly select harvesting? Sure Sure
Dude it takes a year or more for a fish to grow even a few inches. When you go fishing one day and take home some monster fish, that just created a year or more times worth required for some medium-large fish to get to that point. Not to mention that the one that’s going to “fill” the others larger size some day would get to be that big anyway! As far as lakes like Jordanelle are concerned, none of us know what’s going on. A) Maybe big ones are in there and people just aren’t catching them. B) Maybe people are keeping to many bigger ones and like i’ve already explained it takes substantial amounts of time for them fish to grow to that size.
New lakes have nice fish at the beginning because they usually stock them with larger ones. Lakes like the the Boulder Mountains have crap loads of fish dude. Going into winter before winter kill occurs, there’s TONS of fish. It’s a matter of survival of fittest meaning who was able to find the deepest part of the lake with the best oxygen quality and the best feed.
But Ya go ahead and keep keeping that monster one and telling yourself one will get to that point in no time at all.You are so far off in your assumptions about Boulder Mountain.Please elaborate on some other subject. Sorry, touchy matter.
Name even 1 thing I said thats debatable. Let me guess, years that people are catching more big fish are ones where people are correctly select harvesting? Sure Sure
You’re in your early 20’s, maybe younger. You did some research last yea, wrote a paper. Correct?
5 years from now, you’ll realize just how little you know.
this is EXACTLY why you see trophy brook trout on the Boulder mountain – but ONLY in lakes that have poor spawning habitat or partial winterkill. You have to keep the population of all fish in check so that the growth rates stay high. As soon as you move out of that zone, the growth rates slow and the average fish size goes down.
but, you guys just keep saying “protect the big ones” and we’ll continue to have a fishery full of small ones. Sounds like that’s the consensus.
You realize that the DWR could easily keep the fish population in check in most of the boulder mountain lakes if they would just plant fewer fish or do a quick survey of the lake and only plant fish if the lake needed it. Instead they have blindly planted 50 Brookies per acre per year in most lakes. It has ruined some very productive fisheries on that mountain. If the DWR understands what you are preaching I hope they act accordingly and only plant the Boulder Mountain lakes as needed and only with the amount of fish needed to keep things in balance.
With that said, I agree with almost everything you have said up to this point. If a large fish is pulled out of a fishery, a smaller will quickly take it’s place. However, if there are too many fish in the fishery then the “hole” left by the big fish that was taken from the fishery is spread thin across many fish trying to fill it at once, the result is the growth rate slows down and the many fish don’t get as big.
Dude it takes a year or more for a fish to grow even a few inches. When you go fishing one day and take home some monster fish, that just created a year or more times worth required for some medium-large fish to get to that point. Not to mention that the one that’s going to “fill” the others larger size some day would get to be that big anyway! As far as lakes like Jordanelle are concerned, none of us know what’s going on. A) Maybe big ones are in there and people just aren’t catching them. B) Maybe people are keeping to many bigger ones and like i’ve already explained it takes substantial amounts of time for them fish to grow to that size.
New lakes have nice fish at the beginning because they usually stock them with larger ones. Lakes like the the Boulder Mountains have crap loads of fish dude. Going into winter before winter kill occurs, there’s TONS of fish. It’s a matter of survival of fittest meaning who was able to find the deepest part of the lake with the best oxygen quality and the best feed.
But Ya go ahead and keep keeping that monster one and telling yourself one will get to that point in no time at all.
I thought this statement was a joke but it’s almost like you actually believe what you say.
this is EXACTLY why you see trophy brook trout on the Boulder mountain – but ONLY in lakes that have poor spawning habitat or partial winterkill. You have to keep the population of all fish in check so that the growth rates stay high. As soon as you move out of that zone, the growth rates slow and the average fish size goes down.
but, you guys just keep saying “protect the big ones” and we’ll continue to have a fishery full of small ones. Sounds like that’s the consensus.
You realize that the DWR could easily keep the fish population in check in most of the boulder mountain lakes if they would just plant fewer fish or do a quick survey of the lake and only plant fish if the lake needed it. Instead they have blindly planted 50 Brookies per acre per year in most lakes. It has ruined some very productive fisheries on that mountain. If the DWR understands what you are preaching I hope they act accordingly and only plant the Boulder Mountain lakes as needed and only with the amount of fish needed to keep things in balance.
With that said, I agree with almost everything you have said up to this point. If a large fish is pulled out of a fishery, a smaller will quickly take it’s place. However, if there are too many fish in the fishery then the “hole” left by the big fish that was taken from the fishery is spread thin across many fish trying to fill it at once, the result is the growth rate slows down and the many fish don’t get as big.So true, Highmth. And our fine Southern Region Bioligists will be addressing that problem soon because of a certain “Survey Response”.
The “Brethren of the Mountain” can finally see some hope. Brook Trout Forever!!
People make me laugh. People can talk smack but can’t provide examples all you can do is lame personal insults. Yall wanna know why most records for fish such as the strawberry reservoir cutthroat at 26 lbs were caught a long time ago? Because there was less people fishing which meant less fish were being taken from the lake. It has nothing to do with the b/s select harvest theory. Aint it just funny that most of the records were set a long time ago?
Don’t gotta be older than 19 or smarter than I am to know basic knowledge.
That kind of sounds like some of the small reservoirs I fish in Idaho. Lots of small fish that need to be thinned out. One of the worst for is C&R the first half of the year, which I find strange, because they seem to spawn very well there. There is also a slot limit where all fish between 12-16" must be released, but the limit is only 2 fish total. I wish they would change it to something like 6 fish, with only one being over the 16" size. That seems like it would thin out the population and allow more fish to grow large.
I agree. I will take it one step further. I hate the concept of give and take for the casual angler. Many Uinta lakes face the same problem the obligatory stocking of fish every year for the give and take of the angular. This is great for the casual angular to always catch fish, but hurts the chances of fish developing into trophy or decent sized fish.
Also, I wish don’t understand why we have to continually dump sterile rainbows into every single lake. For the casual angular that fishes maybe 4-5 times a year.
In Utah the options are limited to go out and catch a trophy fish.
"I’m sorry everyone for various topics where I’ve become ridiculously involved in such as Carp removal and the Fishing License Price Change thing. Although I obviously have my opinions on topics like this, I need to take a chill pill and not get involved in literally every comment that’s disagreeing with me. Now, don’t expect me to be silent when something else comes up but I promise I’ll be more respectful in posts, and I won’t be writing a billion responses like before. " Emphasis added.
I sure hoped that you were sincere when you wrote this, but alas it was only false hopes on my part. Please give it a rest and do what you stated you would do.
Frankly I don’t care about this topic because it’d never happen. No one ever is going to be on the same page about what fish they should keep/etc. I am done talking about it now but I definitely was going to voice my opinion I guess according to you I shouldn’t post at all cause 4 or 5 posts isn’t much at all.
It’s kind of funny because I don’t say tons in real classes but when I do most teachers like my comments. Seems like everyone hates me on here when I speak though lol [:/]
If a large fish is pulled out of a fishery, a smaller will quickly take it’s place. However, if there are too many fish in the fishery then the “hole” left by the big fish that was taken from the fishery is spread thin across many fish trying to fill it at once, the result is the growth rate slows down and the many fish don’t get as big.
Exactly. So, if the growth rate is slow due to too many fish trying to fill the same gap, how do you fix that?
fishinglunatic – have you read any of the reports and articles I’ve posted? You should. You seem very enthusiastic about fishing and fisheries management. You have a few concepts wrong – but with an open mind I think you could learn a few things and actually understand them. Use your passion to your advantage, and take some advice: educate. Take advantage of the opportunity to learn from others.
You’ve got a paper right here that will help you correct a few things you’ve got slightly off. Read it. You’ll enjoy it.
You realize that the DWR could easily keep the fish population in check in most of the boulder mountain lakes if they would just plant fewer fish or do a quick survey of the lake and only plant fish if the lake needed it. Instead they have blindly planted 50 Brookies per acre per year in most lakes. It has ruined some very productive fisheries on that mountain. If the DWR understands what you are preaching I hope they act accordingly and only plant the Boulder Mountain lakes as needed and only with the amount of fish needed to keep things in balance.
Without knowing the exact lakes you are referencing, I can only respond to the basics of what you are saying here…but, I can’t help but say a few things:
For many of the boulder mountain lakes, there is no such thing as a quick survey–population surveys can be very time consuming when access to a lake is not possible via truck or atv. With the number of biologists and number of fisheries and work that is needed to be done, quick yearly surveys of all fisheries simply is not feasible.
The word "ruined"is probably not only excessive but also incorrect…your beef is that the trophy quality of some of your favorite fisheries has declined because fish densities are up and quality is down. Since you understand the basic concept of growth and density, you should also understand that these trophy fisheries can be easily returned to trophy status via decreased stocking…so nothing has really been “ruined”!
You mentioned that the DWR “blindly” stocks lake at 50 fish per acre on the Boulder…again, I believe your word choice is excessively harsh. Stocking rates on the mountain were established by a lot of trial and error. And, for many years these rates worked fabulously for much if not all of the mountain. So, what has changed to make those rates no longer successful in creating trophy fisheries now when they were in the past? In my eyes, the big change over the years was the regulation change that disallowed winter fishing in some lakes and the slot limit. Is it possible that the reduced harvest and fishing pressure has actually adversely affected these trophy lakes…I think it has! To fix this problem it is probably time to revisit the stocking rates…
The last comment I would like to make deals with the idea of expectations…the reality is that fishermen fit into a lot of different hat sizes. Some want to just catch a few fish for dinner, some want to catch a few nice ones, and some want the chance at a trophy. Because we all have different expectations, it is important, in my opinion, that some lakes are managed for casual anglers that just want to catch a few and some lakes are managed for trophy anglers. I think the DWR recognizes this too and will try to accommodate all types of anglers as best they can with both stocking rates and regulations…
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4) The last comment I would like to make deals with the idea of expectations…the reality is that fishermen fit into a lot of different hat sizes. Some want to just catch a few fish for dinner, some want to catch a few nice ones, and some want the chance at a trophy. Because we all have different expectations, it is important, in my opinion, that some lakes are managed for casual anglers that just want to catch a few and some lakes are managed for trophy anglers. I think the DWR recognizes this too and will try to accommodate all types of anglers as best they can with both stocking rates and regulations…
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As long as at least 70% of the management efforts on Boulder Mountain go solely to the enhancement of trophy Brook Trout. That is what over 70% of the anglers that fish the Boulder desire.
. As long as at least 70% of the management efforts on Boulder Mountain go solely to the enhancement of trophy Brook Trout. That is what over 70% of the anglers that fish the Boulder desire.
well…I wouldn’t go that far. Managers cannot simply go with “majority rules”. They still have to use sound management practices that fit the waters. Just because 70% of anglers want trophy brook trout management doesn’t mean the mountain can support it. Really, what it comes down to is making existing fisheries better. I think our managers want to improve the fishing at all lakes on the Boulder, regardless of species.
