Berry Chubs

[utfishguy31]

I posted a reply on the DWR website about this problem,I want to know everyones feelings and possible solutions to this chub problem at the berry.I personaly dont catch very many chubs,but I know its a problem and the cutts cant do it all by themselves.I would think planting another preditorial fish like a tiger muskie or tiger trout to help eat these chubs or some other sterile fish that the dwr can control.I personaly feel that the DWR has not learned from the past and are not looking to change there managment of strawberry and soley hopeing the cutts take care of the problem.Just my thoughts..
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[CROSSINEYES]

BOY THIS IS GOING TO HEAT UP. THE TROUT CAN NO WAY KEEP UP WITH THE CHUBS FOR THE BIG CHUBS DONT HAVE VERY MANY BIG CUTS TO BE AFRAID OF. I FEAL THE SLOT NEEDED TO PROTECT FISH UP TO 30 INCHES. IF IT WAS THE CHUBS WOULD NEVER BE A PROBLEM JUST A FOOD BASE, FOR A 30 INCH CUTT COULD EAT 3 9 INCH CHUBS A WEEK. THUS THE SPAWNER CHUBS ARE KEPT IN CHECK. BUT THIS BEING A CATCH UM AND COOK UM STATE IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. SOME WALLEYES WILL THIN THEM OUT TO. LOL. TRULY I WOULD LOVE TO SEE LAKERS CLOSER TO SLC. AND THE KOKES IN THER WOULD WORK WELL FOR THEM AS WELL AS THE CHUBS. NOW THAT WOULD BE A KILLER RES!!!! WITH A BIGGER SLOT WE WILL HAVE TROPHY CUTS CAUGHT ALL THE TIME A FIVE POUNDER WOULD BE A DINK.
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[oldspot]

I talked a DWR officer when they were gill netting Starvation. He told me they were targeting the large chubs for the reason that older chubs dont spawn. They wanted to remove the older chubs for the food base in the lake. So they started with big gill nets so big that chubs could swim right threw it. (I guess that the were targeting the 5 to 10 pound chubs.) Well, they removed most of the 5 to 10 pound walleyes.
It was only after a lot of anglers became concerned about the removal of the large walleyes that they changed to smaller gill net, and then the reason was the removal of small walleyes.

The future of Strawberry is writen in stone. Just look back a couple of years. History repeats its self.
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[Theekillerbee]

The problem with the larger predatorial fish, is that they don't only select chubs to eat. They'll eat little trout as well, so it is a two edge sword. I currently like the Berry right where it is at. A little bigger slot wouldn't be too bad, but it's my opinion that bait only fishing should be outlawed. Too many people are ripping hooks out of the trouts bellys and killing them off. Oh well. Still a great place to fish.
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[CROSSINEYES]

DONT YOU THINK THE TROUT FRY ARE EATEN RIGHT NOW? HMMM THINK THAT OVER AGAIN. ANY MINNOW IS FOOD TO A PREDITOR. THEY WILL NEVER TURN DOWN A MEAL IVE WATCHED THE CUTS CHASING TROUT FRY MANY TIMES. WHY DO RAPALAS WORK SO WELL UP AT THE BERRY. OR ON THE PROVO THE GREEN. BIG FISH LIKE BIG BITES!!!! AND ANY MINNOW WILL DO. THER IS NO DISCRIMMINATION ON THER DINNER TABLE..
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[utfishguy31]

Tubedude I respect your take on this,I am not trying to armchair anything..I am simply stating the fact that this managment of the berry by using cutts alone will not work over the long hull.Look at the past.You make a great point about the other types of minnows would be eaten by tiger muskie ..ect.. That is true But with enough natural spawning and planting and limit the numbers of preditorial fish would not impact the minnows up there.The chub is also a native fish to the area I belive and thats why they cant get rid of it even after all of the treatments.I think if the current regs would been implaced back in 1991 then they wouldnt be having this problem and there would be a small population of chubs in the lake due to natural conditions,but they waited to long and here we are..Thats just my opinion.
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[fuzzyfisher]

i feel the same way about the chub in the berry.. they are going to retake the lake when it's all said and done.. and i dont think any trout will help it out much..time will tale i'm sure..

but tiger musky would not help the probelm as much as some would think.. being a warmer water fish they might not do as good a job in a lake that is cold most the time.. pike would be a much better choice or even better than pike would be chain pickrel..chain pickrel eat like pike but only get 2 to 5 lbs in size and would be perfict for picking up what the cutt's can't.. but then again you have a fish the DWR can not control.. and they seam to have a problem with that now days.. the berry is always going to be a problem for the DWR because they will not do what they need to to fix the problem..and that is get a preditorial fish in there that will reproduce on it's own no planting needed and will eat anything and every thing that is in there as far as rough fish go that is..
slime rockit's like cutt's and rainbows have not been able to do this in the past in any lake in utah!! the berry will be no diffrent even splake and tiger trout do not seam to make much of a difrence on the chub in most the lakes i have seen..
i do know this the DWR has wasted some big buck's to try a fail time and time again on countless lakes.. just to have the chub come back time and time again..
they have to find a predator that can do that and stop wasting money poisning lakes.. all they end up doing is killing all the trout and the chub still are there..
why not try and use the chub and get some world record fish growing in our lakes instead?
the berry will be lost after the next chub take over..the DWR has already said they will not try and poison it again..and i think it should never been poisoned befor when the right predator would have fix the problem for alot less of a cost than poisoning it would have and the problem would have been fixed once and for all.. other than there would not be slame rockits in there any more as well or not as many as there is now..
on the good side there is starting to get more smallmouth bass in the berry and they can help alot with the chub..
might be to little way to late tho..
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[utfishguy31]

Tubedude,

Agian I respect you and ,but I have to disagree with you on ths one..This subject is part of fishing and belongs on this board.There are posts out there time after time complaing about chubs in the berry.There is no need for name calling and thats not why I brought this up.This needs to be discussed becasue WE the tax payers and WE the sportsmans are paying the goverment (DWR) to manage the lakes and provide outdoor recreation.I am not saying I have the answers to this on going problem,what I am saying there has to be more of an agressive managment program up at the berry.The past managment plan DOES NOT WORK.There needs to be changes within the DWR handling strawberry and other lakes.Like RON said there solution is to count on the cutts or poision.This is a critical time for strawberry And if the wrong decisions are made now then it will be the lake of the late 80's 90% non-game fish 10% game fish.I dont think there is one stable fishery in this state.I also know that the DWR has there hands tied from the fed guys for introducing non native fish and all the fed BS that they have to live with.I have asked diffrent officers when I am checked up there whythe regs were not put into effect back in 91,and they dont say anything they avoide the question,or they dance around the question.I am a concerned sportsman who has fished this lake all of my life,and would like to see be a great fishery in the future for my kids and there kids to enjoy.
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[CROSSINEYES]

ya now that sounds like a ton of new stuff i could lern how to catch. wthe dwr could get the peranas from utah lake. i dont know about the rest.
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[cat_man]

Hey fish guy,

It's great that you take such an interest in the 'Berry.

I believe TubeDude is right on this one. In the past, when they poisoned Strawberry, it was a much smaller reservoir. Since the Soldier Creek damn was put in place flooding the old reservoir (and enlarging it), it is no longer feasable to poison the lake. There is too much water now, and also more people are affected downstream now, since they have built the tunnel over to Diamond Fork and the Spanish Fork river. This brings Strawberry water to Utah Lake and South Utah County water users. Also, since June Suckers exist in Utah Lake, it could potentially affect them as well. No, poisoning is out of the question now.

Back when they had cycles of poisoning the lake, then the chubs returning, and poisoning again, there was a different mentality, and different regulations. Now the Cutthroats are being managed through a slot system, and it seems to be working. There are far more larger class cutts in there than before, and according to DWR gillnet surveys, the numbers of smaller chubs are drastically down. That means that the current management plan is doing EXACTLY what it should! It doesn't matter if there are larger chubs in there. As a matter of fact, it's probably a good thing. It maintains a healthy balance between predator and prey. The chubs will spawn and there will be lots of small ones every spring, which the cutts will gobble up most of before they can mature to spawing age. This provides forage for the cutts while also controlling their numbers effectively. Since now there is a slot limit and a 4 fish limit, and anglers are asked to not keep fish on every trip, the cutts remain in sufficient numbers to keep tabs on the chubs.

One risk that I see is that the cutts could completely take the chub numbers down so low that it is similar to Starvation where there are only ancient chubs and no fry survive. That would in turn cause the cutthroat population to crash. If that happens, hopefully they will make a comeback parallel to the chubs so that they always stay in balance.

For the time being, however, the current management plan seems to be working quite well.
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[fuzzyfisher]

what no peacock bass!! lol..
the chub have been the thorn in alot of lakes here in utah..i dont know what kind of fish it is going take to control the chub if any can in the berry..but it is fun to think of the big fish it could have in it if the cutt's were not priority over all others..
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[Kent]

[size 1]"There is too much water now, and also more people are affected downstream now, since they have built the tunnel over to Diamond Fork"[/size]
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[size 1]Sorry, but this tunnel is not new, it existed when there was no Soldier Creek just Strawberry.[/size]
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[fairwayphilly]

Saugeyes! How come no one mentioned saugeyes? They are a steril hybrid so the population is controlable, aggresive predator and are well suited to cold water.
Seriously though anytime you introduce an exotic species you are going to have problems balancing the equation. Now I love the cool water species as much as anyone and pleased that we have the opportunity in Utah to chase fish that aren't native, but if you truely want a balanced predator prey relationship you need to look at mothernature. She's been doing the math a lot longer than the DWR. Look at what the chubs natural evolutionary predators are and you'll find the bonneville cuthroat. The big problem is managing the exotic predator---ME!! Natural populations cycle, some more than others, but if left alone will always return. I'm sure none of us were willing to wait several years or several decades for the pre-poison chubs to crash, but eventually they would have and the trout would have come back. The DWR has a very touchy job with often times no right answers. They are pressured to maintain a boom cycle all the time and that just isn't possible. Now I'm not saying that I agree with every management decision the state of Utah makes, CAUSE I DONT, but they do deserve a little credit for doing a high pressure, low paying job where no mater what they do the only thing that is assured is that someone will be PISSED.
Don't get me wrong; if the DWR decides to throw Muskellunge, walleye, or anyother toothy monster in there I'll be the first one out with my rod and I'll fish the crap out of it until it crashes, then I'll fish somewhere else and complain about how bad of a job the DWR did. Besides it wouldn't be any fun if you're favorite lake was perfect every time you fished it. You would never go anywhere else or try anything new.
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[piscispursuit]

Thought I'd throw my two cents in. I came across an web article on /. that seems to be the most promising solution in controlling an undesirable fish population (or any population of pests, for that matter). The Aussies are genetically modifying fish to be daughterless - meaning all offspring are male. It doesn't take too long with all male offspring for a population to die out. Check it out at [url "http://www.pestanimal.crc.org.au/faq3.htm"]http://www.pestanimal.crc.org.au/faq3.htm[/url]. Cool idea....
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[Kent]

I can't get your link to work.
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[Carp_Punisher]

[#505000]Cossineyes...... Actually if you read Killerbee's post it says that in the first couple of lines. He says right there that big predators eat trout fry? Cutthroat are predators so I'm not sure I understand your reply to him?
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[#505000]I'm going to have to jump in on this and agree with Tubedude and Catman. Every publication I have read says the small chub population is decreasing each year. I think the biggest concern we have to worry about is an eventual crash of the trout population if the chub population gets decimated to the point oit can no longer support the large cuts.[/#505000]
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[#505000]I think it would cause weeping wailing and gnashing of teeth if they made Strawberry a artifical only resevior but I agree again with Catman that too many clueless bait guys (me being a bait guy hopefully not clueless) try to play trout surgeon to remove a $.03 hook from a fish that's gutted powerbait. killing a large slot fish. Maybe artificial is the way to go there.[/#505000]
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[#505000]Fairwayphil I must say and I am not making this up I was thinking Saugeye too. I guess great minds think alike eh? As much as I enjoy fishing for trout, I do wish the Utah DWR would get over it's love affair with the trout and start making some more diverse fisheries. One of the biggest draws for me when I fish Utah Lake is that fact I never really know what I'm going to pull in on any given trip. There are so many species to choose from I can focus on one or be surprised like when I caught a walleye on stink bait.[/#505000]
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[#505000]Walleye, Pike, and several other species seem to be bastard fish barely tolerated by the DWR. Although they do protect them they sure seem anxious to do the walleye in, and the pike around the state especially if they share a water with the beloved rainbow. [/#505000]
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[#505000]Ok I'll get off my box. I would like to say I wish they would take some of these larger reseviors and really create some diverse interesting fisheries. Imagine Strawberry teeming with most of the Utah Lake species minus the carp. How cool would that be??[/#505000]
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[road]

Gotta love this man guys! I'm in favor of the gar, but hold off on them others LMAO.

As for the Berry I fish it weekly, most times twice a week. The lake is in better shape than it has been since the seventies. You all seem to forget how much pressure this one body of water gets. Big fish in the Berry ..... you bet there are. I've been waiting for MGB or HA 69 too hook and post their pics. Not wishin ya any bad luck boys, but I am not missing the pics <grins>. The Berry requires its dues from all anglers. Pay your dues and you will be rewarded! I myself love this lake and whats been happening there............. but the Gar ......... oh my a dream come true!!

There are always the RAC meeting to voice your opinions and give your suggestions. I can agree that in the past the Berry was hap-hazard in its managment methods. But it is better managed today than ever before. Just my 2 cents on the Berry. Like TD I have been fishing it since the 60s (late 60s for me).
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[RipNLips]

[black]Obviously Strawberry is eutrophic and Bear Lake is oligotrophic, but I still gotta ask myself, why have the chubbs that have existed in Bear Lake since long before any of us were born not taken over? Is it competition with the other prey (i.e. cisco, sculpin, whitefish, etc), pressure from the predators (bear lake cutthroat and lake trout), or the ologotrophic nature of the lake? If it's pressure from predators then just maybe the DWR is onto something with bear lake cutthroat in Strawberry if they manage it right. Time will tell.[/black]
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[Bigfishrule]

I too agree with TD and Catman. The other times the Berry was poisoned there was no slot and eight fish limits. As for chubbs in other waters, none are managed with a slot. The Gorge used too have a lot of chubbs then the macs grew up and ate all the chubbs and are now going thru the Kokanee. These cycles need management and that is way they do gill net studies and try to help mother nature. With all the pressure we can't take all the cutts out before they grow up and expect them to keep the chubb population in check. But on the other hand if we get to many big cutts they will destroy the forage base. So it requires management to try and keep ahead of the bust cycles. Also I seldom catch chubbs at the Berry, without my cast net. But I dont drown bait. It seems to me the ones who do catch a lot more chubbs. So lets give this management system a chance before we to excited about drastic changes. Two years, since the slot, is not a fair evaluation time. Personally I always thought Strawberry should be managed as world class fishery with no bait allowed. But I'm only on guy and there are others that want to dunk thier powerbait. Which I will do at other resevoirs that are considerded put and take. I dont feel all our resevoirs have the trophy capabilities that Strawberry has, so they should all be managed differently. Well I'm done with my rant now and again LETS GIVE IT A FEW YEARS WITH THE SLOT!
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[Coldfooter]

I tend to agree that the "slot" is keeping the chubs in check. And to try and destory the entire population of Chubs will not only be a waste of time, effort and jingle, but would also cause a crash in the slime rockets that depend on the chub as feed. After all, Cutties wont servive on Power bait alone no matter how many semi loads are tossed in to float on the water each weekend.
However, Strawberry was never intended to be a "trophy fishery". The simple truth is its needed as a "family waters" witch means kiddies fish there as well as adults. I personally dont fish Dah Berry often and basical only fish it late in fall and during the early part of ice season. But I do realize its a hot spot for a lot of famlies to haul the kiddies to for a day in the out doors and fishing witch means, for the most part, bait fishing.. Whats more, I wouldnt have one single problem allowing kiddies the option of keeping a slimer within the slot. After all many kiddies would like to show their trophy at the dinner table no matter what its size. Yet I also realize that to many adults would try an abuse that option so all must suffer and thats a shame..
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