Yuba?

[TubeDude]

Its came pretty close to being bone dry a few times, maybe that will be good for the lake to start over again and get rid of some of the carp... I have no idea why dwr puts trout in there... there is no structure its not managed as a fishing destination its a over sized irrigation pond thats it. It gets 80° water temps in the summer I don't know why dwr put I can't remember maybe 100,000 tiger trout in there last year? Anything 2-3" the carp will eat no problem. I love yuba im there ALOT!!! But they should of just let the pike flourish i think.  It was the only decent place in utah to go and actually target pike. We got 3 over 40" on one morning trip and a dozen or more in the 25-34" range. Those days are long over im afraid. But don't worry they'll dump thousands and thousands of trout in there just for them to die instead of letting the pike and walleye do well. Put some sort of shinner or bait fish in there for the other fish to eat other then trout... unless the trout were just the food for the struggling other species. Maybe pat knows more about it then me but yuba is like a second home to me and its sure going down hill quick.

I am attaching something I put together to highlight the history of the lake between 2004 and 2009.  It was not long after that the formerly abundant perch population once again tanked.  And walleyes also thinned out a lot...because they could not live on carp fry alone.  The northern pike were great for a while...with anglers enjoying multi fish days which included some big ol' bigguns.  But the combination of a war against them by DWR, angler harvest and declining food resources the pike population also took a dive. 

In more recent years there have been plantings of smallmouths and wipers...with some amazing results...especially with wipers.  Might be hope for a good fishery there in the future...but questionable with no reliable year round food source.  The once prolific fathead minnow population is a thing of the past and as a shallow mud bowl with no real structure around the whole lake it is not a spawn-friendly environment for almost any species. 

I have fished Yuba since the late 1970s.  Up until the early 1990s it was a fish factory.  You could fill a boat with footlong or bigger perch.  And limits of walleye took only an hour or so on a good morning.  Plus, there were a lot of big catfish to bend your stick while fishing for other species...or for catfish if you deliberately fished for them.  And while there were not great numbers of pike, there were always a few around.  But that extended drought beginning before Y2K began the great downward trend of the whole lake.  By mid 2004 there was hardly a trickle of Sevier River water making it all the way to the dam.  And when the lake refilled in 2005...after a good winter...the only option for a fishery was to stock the lake with rainbows.  The rest is contained in the attached PDF file.