05-16-2017, 06:09 PM
[#0000FF]For many years, Starvation was a chub factory. It was choked with them. Only browns could survive. The rainbows stocked could not make it with all the chubs.
Walleyes and smallmouth were planted to reduce the chubs...which they did all too well. Within a few years the only remaining chubs were 20 year old chubosaurs with fat bellies and lesions. Any young they produced were slurped up by the walleyes and smallies.
Then...somehow...yellow perch showed up. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when these invasive species were first detected. But they saved Starvation...exploding until they were almost a nuisance...but a good nuisance...growning fast and large...up to 15 inches.
There was a big perch dieoff over the winter of 2012 and the numbers dropped below the sustainability point. The predators ate whatever young were produced and they never got a good toehold again. There have been a couple of glimmers of hope but seemingly never will be as it once was.
The walleyes in Starvation do indeed eat crawdads. I have caught plenty with "mudbugs" in their bellies. And green flies and plastics account for lots of those toothy critters.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Walleyes and smallmouth were planted to reduce the chubs...which they did all too well. Within a few years the only remaining chubs were 20 year old chubosaurs with fat bellies and lesions. Any young they produced were slurped up by the walleyes and smallies.
Then...somehow...yellow perch showed up. There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth when these invasive species were first detected. But they saved Starvation...exploding until they were almost a nuisance...but a good nuisance...growning fast and large...up to 15 inches.
There was a big perch dieoff over the winter of 2012 and the numbers dropped below the sustainability point. The predators ate whatever young were produced and they never got a good toehold again. There have been a couple of glimmers of hope but seemingly never will be as it once was.
The walleyes in Starvation do indeed eat crawdads. I have caught plenty with "mudbugs" in their bellies. And green flies and plastics account for lots of those toothy critters.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]