05-20-2016, 03:32 PM
What Cliff, and many others, don't understand is that managing fish is NOT like managing deer. Fish are NOT mammals. Fish do not grow like mammals.
Fish growth is indeterminate. Mammal growth is determinate. Think about an elephant. When a baby elephant is born, it is "pre-determined" that it will grow big over the course of it's life. Fish differ. They rely on habitat and environment much more so than mammals. Fish grow to match their environment. Thus, we often times find OLD fish that are SMALL. When fish reach sexually mature ages at less than desired sizes, we have a "stunting" problem. Stunting happens when you have small old fish reproducing and creating more fish. Creating more fish compounds the stunting issue. Now you have more, and more small old fish reproducing.
When stunting occurs, guess what? You don't get big fish anymore! They simply are not there! So having a slot to protect those "big" fish is crazy because there are no big fish to protect!
You have to do something to reduce those small fish. Education is key. Get anglers (like Cliff) to realize the benefits of harvesting those small fish. Unfortunately, anglers can't really do this on their own. We just can't (or won't) harvest enough to do any good.
How do you fix this?
Without natural systems in place to control populations of non-native fish, it is very difficult. This is exactly why fish managers are very careful about what species they put in our lakes and reservoirs, and exactly why they cringe about anglers moving fish on their own.
The thing is, all of the DWR fisheries managers saw this coming with Jordanelle -- and they tried to get anglers to understand and help the problem to prolong the good fishing for as long as they could. Anglers didn't want to listen -- some (Cliff??) are still arguing alternatives. We now have exactly what was predicted.
I say that we go to the water owners and request to drop the water level dramatically each year just after the perch and smb spawns. Leave those beds and fry high and dry!
good luck.
[signature]
Fish growth is indeterminate. Mammal growth is determinate. Think about an elephant. When a baby elephant is born, it is "pre-determined" that it will grow big over the course of it's life. Fish differ. They rely on habitat and environment much more so than mammals. Fish grow to match their environment. Thus, we often times find OLD fish that are SMALL. When fish reach sexually mature ages at less than desired sizes, we have a "stunting" problem. Stunting happens when you have small old fish reproducing and creating more fish. Creating more fish compounds the stunting issue. Now you have more, and more small old fish reproducing.
When stunting occurs, guess what? You don't get big fish anymore! They simply are not there! So having a slot to protect those "big" fish is crazy because there are no big fish to protect!
You have to do something to reduce those small fish. Education is key. Get anglers (like Cliff) to realize the benefits of harvesting those small fish. Unfortunately, anglers can't really do this on their own. We just can't (or won't) harvest enough to do any good.
How do you fix this?
Without natural systems in place to control populations of non-native fish, it is very difficult. This is exactly why fish managers are very careful about what species they put in our lakes and reservoirs, and exactly why they cringe about anglers moving fish on their own.
The thing is, all of the DWR fisheries managers saw this coming with Jordanelle -- and they tried to get anglers to understand and help the problem to prolong the good fishing for as long as they could. Anglers didn't want to listen -- some (Cliff??) are still arguing alternatives. We now have exactly what was predicted.
I say that we go to the water owners and request to drop the water level dramatically each year just after the perch and smb spawns. Leave those beds and fry high and dry!
good luck.
[signature]