08-08-2016, 09:22 PM
[#0000FF]Poor old Yuba goes through continuous cycles of boom and bust. There have been years of fantastic fishing for perch and walleyes...with occasional good pike as frosting. Then there will be several years of drought and the whole food chain crashes.
Our current situation began at the end of the last big drought...ending 2005. Yuba was drained to a trickle and a mud puddle. Lots of carp survived but not much else in the lake. Some walleyes and pike found holes upriver to wait for more water. Perch and other species pretty much disappeared.
DWR planted rainbows to provide a fishery while the lake reestablished itself. Great fishing for trout up to 8 pounds for a couple of years. There were hordes of fathead minnows feeding them. Then Rocky Mountain Anglers planted a bunch of yellow perch. The perch population exploded...eating up all the fathead minnows...and the fingerling trout still planted by DWR.
About that time there was a big spawn among the few remaining northern pike and everybody was catching hammer handle pike. Those pike grew up and spawned...and ate rainbows, perch and anything else that didn't eat them first. DWR quit planting trout.
As top predators, the pike went crazy...spawning and eating. Suddenly there was a big population and they were eating everything in sight. DWR tried to put some controls on the pike by publicizing the fishery, encouraging anglers to fish the lake and to keep everything they caught...up to the 20 fish newly enacted limit.
It didn't take long for the happy harvesters to show up and fill their live wells and coolers with pike...of all sizes...including the big spawners. Even rank amateurs were catching grundles of pike...and keeping them. Although there were a lot of pike, they could not withstand that kind of pressure.
Factor in that the pike had pretty much eaten up all the forage species in the lake...except the carp. And the carp remain small only a short time each year. So food supplies were low, growth rates were slower and the harvest continued...in spite of falling numbers.
At some point the anglers noticed that instead of catching many pike on each trip it was becoming more common to catch only one or two...or none. A lot of folks kept on coming back...hoping there were still lots of fish still there...waiting for them. But even more anglers recognized the down cycle and went elsewhere.
Yes, there are still pike in the lake. And some big ones. They get big by being smart and by being able to eat the larger carp. But they also prey on the smaller members of their own species. And fewer and fewer baby pike ever live long enough to become big pike.
The law of diminishing returns.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]
Our current situation began at the end of the last big drought...ending 2005. Yuba was drained to a trickle and a mud puddle. Lots of carp survived but not much else in the lake. Some walleyes and pike found holes upriver to wait for more water. Perch and other species pretty much disappeared.
DWR planted rainbows to provide a fishery while the lake reestablished itself. Great fishing for trout up to 8 pounds for a couple of years. There were hordes of fathead minnows feeding them. Then Rocky Mountain Anglers planted a bunch of yellow perch. The perch population exploded...eating up all the fathead minnows...and the fingerling trout still planted by DWR.
About that time there was a big spawn among the few remaining northern pike and everybody was catching hammer handle pike. Those pike grew up and spawned...and ate rainbows, perch and anything else that didn't eat them first. DWR quit planting trout.
As top predators, the pike went crazy...spawning and eating. Suddenly there was a big population and they were eating everything in sight. DWR tried to put some controls on the pike by publicizing the fishery, encouraging anglers to fish the lake and to keep everything they caught...up to the 20 fish newly enacted limit.
It didn't take long for the happy harvesters to show up and fill their live wells and coolers with pike...of all sizes...including the big spawners. Even rank amateurs were catching grundles of pike...and keeping them. Although there were a lot of pike, they could not withstand that kind of pressure.
Factor in that the pike had pretty much eaten up all the forage species in the lake...except the carp. And the carp remain small only a short time each year. So food supplies were low, growth rates were slower and the harvest continued...in spite of falling numbers.
At some point the anglers noticed that instead of catching many pike on each trip it was becoming more common to catch only one or two...or none. A lot of folks kept on coming back...hoping there were still lots of fish still there...waiting for them. But even more anglers recognized the down cycle and went elsewhere.
Yes, there are still pike in the lake. And some big ones. They get big by being smart and by being able to eat the larger carp. But they also prey on the smaller members of their own species. And fewer and fewer baby pike ever live long enough to become big pike.
The law of diminishing returns.
[/#0000FF]
[signature]