Smallmouth in Utah

[Bad_Crawdad]

[quote AlexB][quote Bad_Crawdad]Sounds logical, and I would agree with that in lakes that have big fish, but how do they get big if they are stunted?[/quote]

Simple, reduce the number of fish and protect the bigger fish. More food for everyone to get bigger.[/quote]

If I'm reading this right your saying harvest small fish and leave the big ones. There was a scenario like that at lake Powell a few years ago. I found an article on it written by the biologist. Basically they upped the limit on smallies and the fishery responded very well. Here's an excerpt on it.

On January 1, 2002 a new regulation was enacted on Lake Powell that allowed anglers to keep 20 smallmouth bass. The number was not important. It could have been 10 or 30. The philosophical statement was the clincher. I wanted anglers to know that it was okay to keep a smallmouth bass. Catch and release was not working at Lake Powell. Catch and keep would help improve the fishery. Anglers responded to the new keeper philosophy by doubling the bass harvest. In 2002 and 2003 about 25% of bass caught were kept.
Fast forward to 2004. After only two years of "keeping bass" the fishery has responded in dramatic fashion. Shad forage is more abundant. Smallmouth bass are bigger and fatter. Bass tournaments held in 2002 saw winning average weights of less than 5 pounds for five 12-inch smallmouth bass. The first two tournaments held in 2004 had winning weights of over 9 pounds for five fish with a "big fish" over 3 pounds. The ratio of bass over 13 inches in the population (RSD) has improved from zero in 2000 to 20% in 2003. The outlook for 2004 is for continued bass growth and better quality fishing.

How does this work? Smallmouth targeted by our catch and keep program, those 9-11 inch bass, are the most aggressive predators. Young bass are naïve, fearless and always hungry. By keeping the smaller, most aggressive bass, more food was made available for the older, wiser fish that were more selective in feeding habits. Keeping the larger bass would have had the opposite effect of leaving the most efficient predators and not freeing up enough additional forage. Anglers were given information about the goal of the bass harvest program and the target size fish to harvest. They responded with enthusiasm. This was a victory for angler education in action.

Here's a link to the full article.

http://www.wayneswords.com/index.php?opt...&Itemid=50
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