01-06-2015, 10:11 PM
Thanks TD for those thoughts. The chub-bashing is a bit odd to me - enough so that I got off the phone and onto the computer to comment - and here I find your post saving me so much time!
So many make comments about not wanting chubs to proliferate, yet, they are the base upon which large cuts grow. We need a healthy population of all sizes of chubs in strawberry!
The rainbows may well be contributing to any change in large cut production the lake has experienced. The rainbows more directly compete with the chubs for food. More rainbows likely means less chub reproduction, and therefore less food for the cutthroats.
I have read so much moaning about the chubs in Scofield. My youngest caught more chubs last month than the rest in our group caught those really thin young cuts. I've experienced it. But I'm glad to see the thriving forage base! Eventually the balance will tip where the cuts and tigers are eating more chubs than can be produced, and the old long-lived adult chubs will die off (two decades from now?), and the 'balance' may be lost, but until then, the ride is going to be great!
The berry, so far, has maintained a pretty good balancing act. No need to ensure there are so many cuts that not a single chub can survive to adulthood. The goal is to keep them in balance, not to decimate them. Allowing harvest of cuts above 22" (as currently constituted) just may be an important part of keeping that balance.
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So many make comments about not wanting chubs to proliferate, yet, they are the base upon which large cuts grow. We need a healthy population of all sizes of chubs in strawberry!
The rainbows may well be contributing to any change in large cut production the lake has experienced. The rainbows more directly compete with the chubs for food. More rainbows likely means less chub reproduction, and therefore less food for the cutthroats.
I have read so much moaning about the chubs in Scofield. My youngest caught more chubs last month than the rest in our group caught those really thin young cuts. I've experienced it. But I'm glad to see the thriving forage base! Eventually the balance will tip where the cuts and tigers are eating more chubs than can be produced, and the old long-lived adult chubs will die off (two decades from now?), and the 'balance' may be lost, but until then, the ride is going to be great!
The berry, so far, has maintained a pretty good balancing act. No need to ensure there are so many cuts that not a single chub can survive to adulthood. The goal is to keep them in balance, not to decimate them. Allowing harvest of cuts above 22" (as currently constituted) just may be an important part of keeping that balance.
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