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[quote rahmaster]I predict a good bass year at Jordanelle . Two years ago lots of 8-10 inch Bass , last year lots of 12 to 14 inch Bass . I caught lots of small perch through the ice !! Just hope the perch had a good spawn. Lets hope the Lake fills this year !! The Smallmouth will be back !!! I did not see a stunt in the Bass . Nice and healthy !! Good Fishing everyone !!!!! PS. Browns also look very healthy !!![/quote]
Shhhhhhh! Saying positive things about Jordanelle smallies is not allowed here. Nobody will believe you. [  ]
It now is at 70.94% full. [cool]
Oh, and it looks like it's time for IBTL.
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You won't catch me up there!
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[#0000FF]Of course having more shoreline cover/structure would help. There are two parts to a successful perch spawn. First is having the aquatic vegetation or stickups upon which to deposit their strings of sticky eggs. The second is recruitment...the survival and growth of the new hatchlings.
The second part has been a major part of the problem. If the baby perch have no place to hide they are easy pickings for the wolf packs of young smallies that cruise the structureless shoreline looking for the perchlets.
It has been a slow process to rebuild the perch population. With higher water this year flooding up into the weeds and brush that grew on exposed shorelines during the low water years there should be greater recruitment.
I plan to test that theory...probably starting early in July. My past fishing logs on Jordanelle show that is when the water level is at its highest and the smallies and perch are usually shallow in the Provo River inlet area.
Attaching pics of a few smallies I caught in the Rock Cliff area during 2007 - 2008...toward the end of the bigger bass years.
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So thats what I'm saying if it can help and benefit the spawning of perch and other fish smallies and trout can feed on during the low years (and high years), why not at least explore the cost and weigh the pros and cons. I guess they could direct those funds to stocking bait fish or crayfish.... I wish!
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Oh how I love the Snake River!
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[#0000FF]There is another consideration. In the lakes of the east and midwest where they have added artificial structure, the lake levels are generally fairly constant. It is not practical to put that pricey stuff in a lake like Jordanelle that rises and falls many feet on an annual basis...and you never know where the water levels are going to be at spawning time. It is different every year.
I lived quite a while in Arizona and observed their efforts to add plastic trees and other structure in some of their lakes...also dammed impoundments, subject to seasonal drawdowns. In the years when water levels were up, they did indeed provide structure. But in other years they were ugly green trash on a dry lake bottom...subject to vandalism and theft. Knowing the Utah crowd, the artificial structure would be burned or end up in someone's backyard the first time the water level dropped below where the stuff had been planted.
Bottom line...a great idea in theory. In practice there are too many variables and go-wrong factors.
Another also...the lakes in Arizona are full of threadfin shad and there are never any stunting problems. To the contrary there are largemouths over 17 pounds and smallmouths about half that size. And big bluegills...and catfish...and even walleyes. Oh yeah, lots of crappies between 2 and 3 pounds and getting over 4. And down there there are no size restrictions so plenty of larger fish leave the lakes with no visible effect on populations or size.
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[quote bassrods]Like most things you say it just a bunch of BULL, Stripers had a lack of food for a few years ALL lakes go through this at one time..And in the far north who knows or cares..
Do I need my Decoder ring????[/quote]
you need something!
Why do stripers have no limit at Powell? Their population numbers are astronomical!
No comments on Comins Lake in Nevada?
Stunting is not make-believe. It is real. It happens when small fish reproduce. Just like what is happening in Jordanelle with SMB. When those 8" SMB are reproducing, you have a problem. You need to remove some fish.
Adding more perch to an already too high population of SMB won't help. You must remove fish!
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I don't think that price is a issue as most of it could be made of recycled materails donated from different outlets. Also I'm sure the brains behind Jordanelle have water level data that they could compare over that last ten years showing the average level on low years around the time of perch spawn. Alright it's lets put this to rest, thanks again for the info TubeDude.
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"Adding more perch to an already too high population of SMB won't help. You must remove fish!"
[#0000FF]All species in Jordanelle rely on perch as a main forage base. Virtually any bass, trout or other perch of any size you take home and fillet will have perch in their innards...or nothing at all.
If you don't add perch, what would would you add to feed the existing fish? Sure, removing some of the small bass would mean more (perch) for the others. But what would be wrong with supplementing the food supply?
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[quote TubeDude][#0000ff] It is too many mouths and not enough food.
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What all of you keep forgetting is that you can't just keep adding more fish (ie: forage).
What is the carrying capacity of Jordanelle?
How close to carrying capacity are we currently at (over)?
If you are already at that point, which I think we are, then you cannot just add more fish (ie: increase perch spawn / numbers) and expect anything good to come of it!
The solution is a very simple solution, but anglers never like to hear it: remove fish!
any fish. Big fish. Little fish. Red fish. Blue fish. Catfish. Dog fish. Perch fish. Any fish.
Remove some fish.
You knock the overall fish population back by 50% and watch what fast growth does!
We see this every time we rotenone a trout water.
We see this every time a winterkill hits a Boulder Mountain lake.
We even saw this at Yuba after it would crash.
We'll see this with Gunlock.
Lower the fish population and fast growth will take over, and you'll have those trophy SMB back, for a time.
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[quote PBH]What all of you keep forgetting is that you can't just keep adding more fish (ie: forage).
We see this every time we rotenone a trout water.
We see this every time a winterkill hits a Boulder Mountain lake.
We even saw this at Yuba after it would crash.
We'll see this with Gunlock.
Lower the fish population and fast growth will take over, and you'll have those trophy SMB back, for a time.[/quote]
Could we please see it at Scofield?
[red]⫸[/red][orange]<{[/orange][yellow]{{[/yellow][green]{{[/green][size 4][blue]⦇[/blue][/size][blue]°[/blue][#8000FF]>[/#8000FF]
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You like to blow smoke..Look at the size of Powell, now look at how fat the Stripers are for the last Five years..
And if some bows are stunting may be its over planting..
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We have a problem at brownlee where they drop the water level every year to flush smolts and it leaves the fish eggs high and dry. There are entire years of recruitment missing. You either catch rats or toads, no 2 lbrs at all. Bass aren't native this side of the divide, but I sure enjoy them. Did I mention how I love the snake river.
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To show just how good the Striper are doing go to Wayne's site and look at the stunted Striper..LOL[crazy][pirate][cool]
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All I can say is send some our way..
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I think slot limits can be good in some situations, but it does seem like other factors besides over harvest are more of a factor in the intermountain west. I mostly fish southeast Idaho, and there is a lake there where you are only allowed to keep 2 fish with a slot limit of 12-16". The lake experiences severe draw downs and is often quite low heading into winter. It doesn't really have much in the way of brush and trees along the banks, though many springs the water doesn't get high enough to reach them anyway. Couple that with only invertebrates, perch and baby bass as forage and you find a shortage of large fish. Large fish do turn up on occasions (likely from fish that grew large enough to prey on stocked trout), but the vast majority are in the 12-14" range.
Not far away is another lake that tends to have much more water heading into winter and a sizable population of bluegill. It also has extensive areas of willows and cottonwoods that flood every spring. It has general regulations, and while I don't typically catch as many fish as at the first lake, I do find a decent population of larger fish such as these two.
I used to be a pretty diehard catch and release fisherman when it comes to bass, but I'm beginning to see the light so to speak. I still don't keep larger bass, but I don't think it's as damaging to the water if an occasional larger fish is kept as I once thought.
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[quote bassrods]To show just how good the Striper are doing go to Wayne's site and look at the stunted Striper..LOL[crazy][pirate][cool][/quote]
Oh clifffy, have you ever heard of the stripers at Powell being called razorbacks? Right now, people are heading to the dam at wahweap to catch stripers by the cooler loads with bait...why? The stripers have run out of shad on the southern end of the reservoir and are starting to starve Those "big" fish people are catching are so thin that they are often referred to as razorbacks! Lake Powell has a weird phenomena take place where the larger fish are unable to survive because they run out of food and the smaller fish replace them the next year because some food sources are still available to them. The striper situation at Powell is the perfect example of a stunted population. Funny, but you aren't even arguing about the smallmouth...which have also seen stunting problems at Powell.
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From a study done by Wayne "With unlimited reproduction the limiting factor for striper survival and growth is available forage. Stripers have eliminated shad from the pelagic zone on more than one occasion. From 1986-1990 there were almost no shad seen in open water of Powell. That period resulted in stunted stripers and led to the current management plan which is to reduce striped bass numbers by angler harvest. If enough stripers are removed then those that are left will benefit from the finite forage base and remain healthy and grow normally.
That program has worked. In 2004 the average striper weighs about 3-4 pounds which is a good freshwater angling target. The fish are in excellent health which is my main concern. Stripers typically boil in the fall which is unheard of in most other freshwater species.
To keep the fishery as healthy as it is now we continue to harvest all stripers that will not be wasted. "
From Wayneswords: "With unlimited reproduction the limiting factor for striper survival and growth is available forage. Stripers have eliminated shad from the pelagic zone on more than one occasion. From 1986-1990 there were almost no shad seen in open water of Powell. That period resulted in stunted stripers and led to the current management plan which is to reduce striped bass numbers by angler harvest. If enough stripers are removed then those that are left will benefit from the finite forage base and remain healthy and grow normally.
That program has worked....To keep the fishery as healthy as it is now we continue to harvest all stripers that will not be wasted."
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Are you talking Small mouth?? Or large mouth??
Smallies are slower growing then large..Large mouth will grow about as fast as trout 4 to 6" per year, SM about 2 to 4" per year..
In lakes that have all sizes with a good number of 19" and over SM bass they seem to grow faster (or that is what other states say) and do not spawn till they are a bigger size..
SM bass and LM bass like different types of cover and water depth and spawning places and depths..
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[quote wormandbobber]If enough stripers are removed then those that are left will benefit from the finite forage base and remain healthy and grow normally.[/quote]
This is exactly what PBH is saying....remove fish so that the remaining fish can grow. In a system where too many fish exist and the food base is too low to allow for continued good growth, fish must be removed from the system. Lake Powell is a perfect example of this, and Jordanelle and Schofield would be too!
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