05-04-2010, 06:40 PM
I always jump the gun in the early season. Big northern pike are my obsession and Yuba Reservoir is the closest water from my home that contains them, so that is the logical place to start. After a long, long blustery spring the day’s promise of sunshine and no rain brought me out and onto the water.
Yesterday was my third trip of the spring. Somehow I had convinced myself that this time it was going to be different. This time, despite it being early, I was going to catch pike. It was not to be, but something good came of the trip. An edification of sort. A lesson in the continuing quest for my PhD in pike fishing.
Utah Dept of Wildlife Resources Biologist, Justin Nielson and his capable assistant, Jared Erickson were on the water continuing their research into this perplexing fishery. I see DWR biologists there frequently. I’m sot sure if that means they are very busy there or it means that I spend too much time fishing Yuba…or both?
Justin and Jared were gracious enough to share with me their netting results for the day, which perhaps, was taxing on their patience as they were busy and condition were less than ideal. Their nets contained the both pike and walleye. This is encouraging as I was beginning to think there were no pike and definitely no walleye in the reservoir based on the number of either specie caught by me so far this spring.
The pike were not trophy size, running between 5 and 8 pounds, but pike never- the- less and the walleye were mature fish in the 20-inch class. Carp brought up the balance of the netting. The net size is too large for the perch, but they planned using another capture method for the perch today. Those findings are important to both the pike and walleye fishery as perch are prey specie for the predators and numerous anglers’ fish for perch. In fact, many of the yellow perch IGFA line class world records came from Yuba.
The male pike were still spewing milt, which surprised me as I thought that the spawn was long over on Yuba. A subsequent conversation with UDWR’s warmwater species director, Drew Cushing, this morning revealed that the pike in the hatchery at the Lee Kay center in SLC are just now spawning. What this means to me as an angler is important as pike, at least in Yuba, do not follow the traits of mid-western waters and spawn immediately after ice-off. Why is this important to the pike fisherman? Simply because, at least in Utah, pike are not aggressive and feeding ravenously until the water warms and the spawn is over.
Lesson learned: Don’t fish Yuba until, at least mid-May, unless one likes to soak a bait, which I don’t. My time would have been more productive and better spent on Utah Lake catching walleye, white bass and channel cats.
Addition promising information from Drew; The US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) has developed a sterile walleye. This fish can be used as a management tool and introduced to fisheries like Yuba, that have no predictable spawn and recruitment due to drastically fluxuating water levels. These sterile walleye might be planted in Yuba every year to insure good numbers of fish for the anglers with out regard to the devastating draw down that eliminate the spawning beds. Although natural reproduction is preferred, this method assures continuing supplies of walleye for years to come. Very interesting and promising.
As for the pike…they are there to stay and the DWR will find a way to maintain a balance of the big predators and the other game fish in Yuba. One cannot help be excited about the UDWR’s efforts and the promise of things to come.
I’ll give it a few more weeks to warm up in the hopes that the big girls will start to get hungry soon and forget all that reproduction nonsense.
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