05-20-2016, 06:57 PM
I don't know what it is about Jordanelle. We have one or two of these debates every year, discussing the same stuff over and over and over again. [
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Nobody has brought up the new Jordanelle proposal presented in the DWR survey. It proposes to change the regulations from 6 bass with only 1 over 12 inches to 6 bass still but no size restrictions. You could theoretically keep 6 18 inchers. Unless I misread it, the limit is still 6 The stated goal is to increase harvest for reasons that have been brought up in this thread.
My thoughts on it FWIW.
1. I would have changed things differently. I would prefer raising the limit for bass under 12 inches to 10 or 12 fish. At Jordanelle, this has been where the bottleneck has occurred with growth and the slot where an overwhelming percentage of the bass population sits. Some of us have been taking these out for a couple of years, but it is fair criticism that just 6 10 inchers may not make a meal, while 10 or 12 will. For large fish, I probably would keep the limit as it is now.
2. Increasing harvest on the smallest segment of the population (the few big fish) will have little effect on the overall population dynamic, nor will it likely allow more small fish to break through the bottleneck unless the smaller ones have their harvest increased as well . Also, most general non bassin specialists will catch very few large fish sufficient to increase overall harvest by much, while skilled bassers will probably still release these fish. I just don't see how it will increase harvest very much, especially enough to increase growth. A similar change has not helped Deer Creek any, so far as I can see.
3. I'm still one of the pathetic souls that continue to "waste my time" bassin at Jordanelle weekly. I will just say that last year was the first in several years where I DID see some decent growth and fish breaking through the 12 inch ceiling. Why? My non credentialed observation was that the pesky 5-6 incher population was down quite a lot, probably due to partial spawning failure due to the low water. It underscores the argument that overpopulation of the small fish inhibits growth. There are still a ton of 8-11 inchers in there though.
4. What does it really matter. All you hear on the boards are that Jordanelle sucks and is a waste of time. Fine, leave me to myself . []
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]Nobody has brought up the new Jordanelle proposal presented in the DWR survey. It proposes to change the regulations from 6 bass with only 1 over 12 inches to 6 bass still but no size restrictions. You could theoretically keep 6 18 inchers. Unless I misread it, the limit is still 6 The stated goal is to increase harvest for reasons that have been brought up in this thread.
My thoughts on it FWIW.
1. I would have changed things differently. I would prefer raising the limit for bass under 12 inches to 10 or 12 fish. At Jordanelle, this has been where the bottleneck has occurred with growth and the slot where an overwhelming percentage of the bass population sits. Some of us have been taking these out for a couple of years, but it is fair criticism that just 6 10 inchers may not make a meal, while 10 or 12 will. For large fish, I probably would keep the limit as it is now.
2. Increasing harvest on the smallest segment of the population (the few big fish) will have little effect on the overall population dynamic, nor will it likely allow more small fish to break through the bottleneck unless the smaller ones have their harvest increased as well . Also, most general non bassin specialists will catch very few large fish sufficient to increase overall harvest by much, while skilled bassers will probably still release these fish. I just don't see how it will increase harvest very much, especially enough to increase growth. A similar change has not helped Deer Creek any, so far as I can see.
3. I'm still one of the pathetic souls that continue to "waste my time" bassin at Jordanelle weekly. I will just say that last year was the first in several years where I DID see some decent growth and fish breaking through the 12 inch ceiling. Why? My non credentialed observation was that the pesky 5-6 incher population was down quite a lot, probably due to partial spawning failure due to the low water. It underscores the argument that overpopulation of the small fish inhibits growth. There are still a ton of 8-11 inchers in there though.
4. What does it really matter. All you hear on the boards are that Jordanelle sucks and is a waste of time. Fine, leave me to myself . [
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