Disagree all you want. But, your opinions are based upon theory…not observed conditions over the past two years. I suspect you have not fished Strawberry at all during that time.
Angler results have changed. Virtually all Strawberry “regulars”…who catch more fish than all of the amateurs combined…universally claim that the numbers have decreased and the average sizes and weights have decreased. Again, not all fish show this trend but many do. A lot more than three years ago when the minnow population first noticeably declined.
These same Berry pros also catch most of the truly large cutts, and most of them are returned to the water. Yes, there is a harvest factor among the larger fish, but there are just not as many reaching the upper limits of the slot.
And, the cutts may disagree with you on “being better off without forage species”. The Bear Lake cutts are still programmed to eat meat and are slow to revert to slurping “soup”. Perhaps they do not read the same things you do. At least they are a lot more prone to hit large lures than tiny lures or even small pieces of bait. But, the rainbows do.
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My opinion that the slot limit is the limiting factor of size is based upon observed and factual data supplied from trained biologists on numerous reservoirs and in numerous situations. If the slot limit were raised to 24 inches on the high end, I am willing to bet that the number of fish ranging from 22-24 inches would substantially increase.
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I am not sure who you are referring to when you speak of “virtually all Strawberry ‘regulars’”, but that is subjective opinion and not based upon scientific evidence. I would question who these “regulars” are and how many of them you have spoken with.
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Claiming to know who the pros are and how many fish they catch, release, and harvest is laughable. Strawberry Reservoir is a very large body of water that has a huge number of anglers fishing it. I would question whether you know all the “pros” and whether or not you know how many fish are or are not harvested.
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What you seem to forget about bear lake cutts is that even they are NOT programmed to eat fish until they reach certain sizes. The small fish must eat a diet of zooplankton and other invertebrates before they convert to a diet consisting mainly of fish. Based on actual scientific evidence of bear lake cutthroat growth rates in Strawberry and other reservoirs that have been poisoned, I know that these fish grow quicker and healthier when forage fishes are not present at high numbers or immediately following rotenone treatments.
With that being said, to become exceptionally large bear lake cutts are a lot like lake trout, their sizes tend to max out unless they convert to a total fish diet. Generally, cutthroat–like lake trout–tend to max out around 20-22 inches of length if they do not make the conversion. There will always be a bottleneck through which the cutts must pass in order to start growing exceptionally large…just like with lake trout. If the numbers of forage fishes declines, that bottleneck may get more difficult to pass through and competition between small cutthroat for the available invertebrates becomes more fierce and may restrict growth rates. The answer, though, is NOT to increase prey numbers, but to decrease predator numbers.
Remember, a reservoir’s carrying capacity is like a bucket that can hold only so much. IF the number of forage fishes are declining, then one of two things must be happening: 1) trout growth is increasing because the numbers of fish in the bucket has declined and to make up for the lost biomass trout put on extra weight or 2) trout numbers have increased to replace the lost biomass in chubs/minnows. If the second scenario is true, the DWR should be reducing the numbers of cutts they are stocking to assure high growth rates.
Regardless, though, I tend to believe what the biologists are saying about the reservoir than any fisherman: “There was an immediate positive response to the overall adult population due to the regulations imposed in 2003, and it appears that the population will remain at high levels through the next few years. More importantly, the age structure of the adult population has changed with more of the five- and six-year-old fish than we have ever seen in the past. As is shown in some of the following data, these larger (more predatory) cutthroat are very important in limiting chub population growth in Strawberry. Currently, about 20 percent of the cutthroat in the gillnet catches are over 20 inches, and just over five percent are over 22 inches. We have never had that many large fish in the history of this fishery.”
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