08-29-2016, 10:40 PM
[#0000FF]We have had some discussion about the rationale in stocking wipers in Jordanelle...and apparently a lot of other waters as well. I addressed inquiries to Chris Crockett in the Springville DWR office and to Chris Penne in Salt Lake. Here is the informational response from Chris Penne. Thanks again Chris.[/#0000FF]
I believe Chris Crockett may be out in the field right now, so he may take a bit to chime in. I can't comment directly on Jordanelle, but I'm happy to share some insight on the increased use of wipers over the past few years by DWR. Several things have come together to make this happen. First and probably most importantly, the more we use wipers in western reservoirs the more adaptable we are finding them to be. One problem we have with a lot of reservoirs is that they lack a good littoral zone to grow forage fish or even provide nursery habitat for sport fish. These reservoirs are steep sided, generally experience severe water level fluctuations and historically about the only thing we could get to thrive in them have been trout and smallmouth bass. Trout do well since we can stock them at a size which they big enough not to need that nursery habitat and then they can go and feed in open water on zooplankton. Smallmouth have done "well" since they can make a living on the boulders and rocky habitat that is plentiful at most waters. The smallmouth have done well in terms of population numbers, but they may not be very desirable to anglers at the moment in several of these waters as they are overabundant and slow growing. These reservoirs also sometimes have black crappie and yellow perch, which can do well in certain years, but are obviously prone to boom and bust cycles which seem to be strongly influenced by water levels, making them difficult to manage since we have no control over the water.
This brings me to wipers. We are seeing that wipers can also exploit the open water of the reservoir very early on in their life and grow quickly. From what we can tell through our program at East Canyon Reservoir, the young wipers have been feeding in the open water during the summer on zooplankton, effectively exploiting an unoccupied niche and unused food resources. This is because the trout are down deep where there is cooler water and enough oxygen during the summer months and the smallmouth and other fish are generally tied close to the shoreline. This is something not many other species are able to do, so we are getting to provide a new fishery in these instances and use previously unused food resources to do it. Speaking of East Canyon, the wipers are actually doing quite well in there. We've been running a creel survey at the reservoir this summer and there have been a lot of wipers caught this summer. The larger ones are now over 14 inches long and growing fast. Most fish are being caught in the east arm in shallow water. Rather then them not doing well, its just taken a few years for them to grow to a size at which they are vulnerable to angling. In addition, I think it just takes a while for people to figure out how to catch them. One other point too and this is probably the most important one, is that we are not stocking wipers in waters like East Canyon as a flagship species like we do at Willard. We are stocking much lower densities with the dual purpose of providing an additional angling opportunity and taking advantage of extra food resources (in the case of EC, crayfish and zooplankton), and I suppose a third purpose is maybe getting an assist with smallmouth bass management. There isn't any formal research that has been conducted on the relationship between smallmouth bass and wipers, but the two species appear to coexist well in our waters in southern Utah.
I saw that someone mentioned our supply of wipers. Well, we've done a very good job in Utah of working on our supply over the past few years and it shows. We've been able to meet our stocking needs at Willard Bay for several years now and it is clearly showing in the fishing. In fact, I think we've pushed the stocking of wipers at Willard as far as we are comfortable and you've heard me mention before that I'm looking to let our population go down a bit to make sure that we don't exceed our carrying capacity and end up with a bunch of skinny wipers. In addition to meeting Willard's needs we've also been able to stock wipers in several other waters around the state and even start putting them in community waters as well. I feel I should say, we're not looking to stock wipers everywhere and take away the uniqueness of this species. Instead we are finding that wipers do well in many waters where other species don't, that they can exploit currently unused resources, and that they provide another species for anglers to catch, and in some cases they help clean house on overabundant species like chubs, shiners, and perhaps even smallmouth bass. Time will tell on the last one.
Another area where I might be able to provide some perspective would be the muskies. Our experience with tiger muskie in the north is that they are pretty good about not eating themselves out of house and home. In all these years with them in waters like Pineview, its clear they are not eating enough fish to control our numbers of crappie and perch. Minnesota actually did a very good study a few years ago looking at 40 waters where they had stocked muskellunge where they previously hadn't been present and investigated whether or not the muskie had any significant impact on the panfish population (perch, crappie, bluegill, etc.). They could not find that muskie had any impact on both the size or numbers of these fish. They speculated it seems reasonable that panfish like perch, crappie, and bluegill evolved with muskie as a predator and are therefore able to cope with their presence by way of reproduction (producing lots of young) and growing fast. On top of that, the number of muskie stocked in Jordanelle was also lower than what we stock in Pineview on a numbers per acre basis, so I wouldn't think they would be pushing the envelope on food resources this early in the game, even with the addition of wipers.
There are admittedly some unknowns when stocking these new species in these systems, but as someone pointed out the beauty of these sterile sport fish is that we have control over their numbers and can adjust stocking as needed if we have overstocked or understocked on fish.
Hopefully my response answered more questions than it raised. As always, happy to chime in.
Chris Penne
[signature]
I believe Chris Crockett may be out in the field right now, so he may take a bit to chime in. I can't comment directly on Jordanelle, but I'm happy to share some insight on the increased use of wipers over the past few years by DWR. Several things have come together to make this happen. First and probably most importantly, the more we use wipers in western reservoirs the more adaptable we are finding them to be. One problem we have with a lot of reservoirs is that they lack a good littoral zone to grow forage fish or even provide nursery habitat for sport fish. These reservoirs are steep sided, generally experience severe water level fluctuations and historically about the only thing we could get to thrive in them have been trout and smallmouth bass. Trout do well since we can stock them at a size which they big enough not to need that nursery habitat and then they can go and feed in open water on zooplankton. Smallmouth have done "well" since they can make a living on the boulders and rocky habitat that is plentiful at most waters. The smallmouth have done well in terms of population numbers, but they may not be very desirable to anglers at the moment in several of these waters as they are overabundant and slow growing. These reservoirs also sometimes have black crappie and yellow perch, which can do well in certain years, but are obviously prone to boom and bust cycles which seem to be strongly influenced by water levels, making them difficult to manage since we have no control over the water.
This brings me to wipers. We are seeing that wipers can also exploit the open water of the reservoir very early on in their life and grow quickly. From what we can tell through our program at East Canyon Reservoir, the young wipers have been feeding in the open water during the summer on zooplankton, effectively exploiting an unoccupied niche and unused food resources. This is because the trout are down deep where there is cooler water and enough oxygen during the summer months and the smallmouth and other fish are generally tied close to the shoreline. This is something not many other species are able to do, so we are getting to provide a new fishery in these instances and use previously unused food resources to do it. Speaking of East Canyon, the wipers are actually doing quite well in there. We've been running a creel survey at the reservoir this summer and there have been a lot of wipers caught this summer. The larger ones are now over 14 inches long and growing fast. Most fish are being caught in the east arm in shallow water. Rather then them not doing well, its just taken a few years for them to grow to a size at which they are vulnerable to angling. In addition, I think it just takes a while for people to figure out how to catch them. One other point too and this is probably the most important one, is that we are not stocking wipers in waters like East Canyon as a flagship species like we do at Willard. We are stocking much lower densities with the dual purpose of providing an additional angling opportunity and taking advantage of extra food resources (in the case of EC, crayfish and zooplankton), and I suppose a third purpose is maybe getting an assist with smallmouth bass management. There isn't any formal research that has been conducted on the relationship between smallmouth bass and wipers, but the two species appear to coexist well in our waters in southern Utah.
I saw that someone mentioned our supply of wipers. Well, we've done a very good job in Utah of working on our supply over the past few years and it shows. We've been able to meet our stocking needs at Willard Bay for several years now and it is clearly showing in the fishing. In fact, I think we've pushed the stocking of wipers at Willard as far as we are comfortable and you've heard me mention before that I'm looking to let our population go down a bit to make sure that we don't exceed our carrying capacity and end up with a bunch of skinny wipers. In addition to meeting Willard's needs we've also been able to stock wipers in several other waters around the state and even start putting them in community waters as well. I feel I should say, we're not looking to stock wipers everywhere and take away the uniqueness of this species. Instead we are finding that wipers do well in many waters where other species don't, that they can exploit currently unused resources, and that they provide another species for anglers to catch, and in some cases they help clean house on overabundant species like chubs, shiners, and perhaps even smallmouth bass. Time will tell on the last one.
Another area where I might be able to provide some perspective would be the muskies. Our experience with tiger muskie in the north is that they are pretty good about not eating themselves out of house and home. In all these years with them in waters like Pineview, its clear they are not eating enough fish to control our numbers of crappie and perch. Minnesota actually did a very good study a few years ago looking at 40 waters where they had stocked muskellunge where they previously hadn't been present and investigated whether or not the muskie had any significant impact on the panfish population (perch, crappie, bluegill, etc.). They could not find that muskie had any impact on both the size or numbers of these fish. They speculated it seems reasonable that panfish like perch, crappie, and bluegill evolved with muskie as a predator and are therefore able to cope with their presence by way of reproduction (producing lots of young) and growing fast. On top of that, the number of muskie stocked in Jordanelle was also lower than what we stock in Pineview on a numbers per acre basis, so I wouldn't think they would be pushing the envelope on food resources this early in the game, even with the addition of wipers.
There are admittedly some unknowns when stocking these new species in these systems, but as someone pointed out the beauty of these sterile sport fish is that we have control over their numbers and can adjust stocking as needed if we have overstocked or understocked on fish.
Hopefully my response answered more questions than it raised. As always, happy to chime in.
Chris Penne
[signature]
] as this year was the best year there for me in the last 5 for quality fish and I have high hopes for next season if we get decent water. 
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