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Check out what they've been planting in the Berry lately. Since October 1st they have planted 504,324 fish. Of those 468,697 are 3" cutts. Only 22,597 (4.4%) of the fish planted are rainbows over 7". What the he!! is going on, I read multiple articles from the DWR guys that run Strawberry about planting bigger rainbows. 4.4% is not going to cut it if you wan to catch more than 1 rainbow to every 50 cutts. Get it together and do what you say you're going to do! Bring back the bows to the berry. If you have to, plant non-sterile, hybrids in the lake, they have done great in Scofield and Henry's Lake.
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Not to burst your bubble but I believe that is exactly what the DWR said they would do. They said that they would be planting less numbers of rainbows, but larger size so that they would not become quick meals for the large cutts. The theory is that over all there will be more rainbows because nearly all will be eaten if they plant smaller ones.
It is significantly more expensive to plant larger fish than smaller ones, namely because you have to feed them for a longer period of time before releasing them. Don't forget several of the state's hatcheries are either closed or running at less than capacity because of whirling disease problems and other water quality issues. I believe that they are doing the very best they can with the resources they have (for trout, anyway).
They will never put hybrids in there nor non-sterile rainbows. They cannot afford to have the cutts hybridize with the bows. They'd survive fine, except the cutts have a higher tendency to prey on the chubs, and if they hybridized with the rainbows, they wouldn't prey on the chubs as much and the chubs would get out of control again. This would in turn cause the trout population to crash due to competition of the young with the chubs.
They've always planted more cutts in the "Berry than bows (since the poisoning anyway). They are trying to keep the cutts from ever being listed as threatened or endangered species (or subspecies) so it is important to keep them genetically uncontaminated (i.e. that they remain true "pure" cutthoats).
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I think with all the pressure the environmentalists are putting on the USFW and the UDWR, they really have to focus on preservation of the cutts. The berry can grow some pig bows, but she also puts out a boat load of really nice big cutts. The bigger bows will undoubtedly last longer, and don't become instant fodder for the cutts. Like Catman says, it is very expensive to raise fish to 7-10 inches. So with higher survival of the bigger fish, less is really more.
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The environmentalists are putting pressure preserving colorado cuthroats in their natural habitat. There is not any pressure from enviros that I am aware of about the ever abundant bear lake strain of cutthroat in Strawberry. I am aware it takes more money to raise larger fish, but 20,000 rainbows compared to 460,000 3" cuthroat. They're not doing enough, they planted 10x that amount of 7" bows in Scofield this year. I've caught a lot of big cutts out of the berry, how many have you caught over 6 lbs? I have caught maybe 2 cutts that big, but I have caught 15-20 bows over that size including a 12 lb bow 2 years ago. It has a lot of big fish, but I'm talking trophy potential 10 lbs+. Cutthroats just don't grow as fast and as big as the rainbows.
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That's true. And along with the cost, the 7" rainbows, although in limited number, will tend NOT to be consumed by the larger cutts now in the lake. And their growth rate will be quite fast from this point.
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Cat man I agree with what you are saying. I do have one question though. Of all the Cutthroat Trout that I catch at the Berry, a lot of them look to have Rainbow markings on them. I know that all fish with Cutthroat markings must be released. My question is how are these fish cross breeding with sterile Rainbows?
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I very seriously doubt that there is much if any cross breeding going on. Although we all know that "nature finds a way", so anything is possible, those rainbows are sterile and don't count on it.
I bet you're just seeing regular cutthroats. They can look a lot like a rainbow even when not crossbred. Often then completely lack the crimsom slash under the jaw that gives them their name. Just because they don't have a red slash doesn't mean they're not a pure cutt. That's my humble opinion anyway.
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One thing to note - the figures quoted are numbers of fish, not weight. I would hazard a guess that the total weight of 'bows put in would be very close to the weight of fish put in previously, the fish are just bigger, so lesser in number. I think we would all rather see less numbers of higher weight (and length) fish put in, so they stand a better chance of surviving the cut onslaught. I have caught several big cuts that have puked out 5-6" chubs, so in the case of rainbow survival at Strawberry (as in some other things in life[  ]) - size matters.
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Mike, I don't know where your figures came from but they are way off. This past year the Division stocked roughly 840,500 rainbow trout weighing 40,700 pounds. The coming year there are 532,700 rainbows weighing 48,500 pounds scheduled for stocking. To all active on this site, I monitor it frequently to see what the fishing public is saying for the benefit of our management direction. I have always been favorably impressed with the open and generally knowledgeable exchange. I intercede in this case because the numbers were so far off and when erroneous information gets started it can often be difficult to correct. You can access our actual stocking records on the Division's web site at wildlife.utah.gov by clicking on fishing and scrolling down to stocking information. Good Fishing, Don Archer, Special Projects Coordinator, UDWR
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Read the post, before you respond. Your response makes it evident you did not read my post. I said "since October 1st" and rainbows "larger than 7". This data is according to DWR stocking reports, if my numbers are off, your numbers are off, maybe you should check into it. My complaint isn't total number of fished stocked, it is that larger fish are not being stocked at the numbers members of the DWR indicated. I encourage everyone to go to the site that Don says and see for yourself my numbers are correct (1 exception, the stocked average size in Scofield was 6.5"). I am happy you read these forums to keep connected with anglers, but do some reading before you make accusation of "eroneous information". Since you're reading this I have a few questions: Why aren't you stocking more big rainbow trout as you said you were going to do? What percentage of next years stockings are going to be 7" and over? The 3" rainbows are not growing up very well, ask the anglers on this board how many rainbows they are catching. The answer is very few!
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Born2fish You can't be seriously complaining about how many bows they put in during the last month alone.
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Welcome to the board Don.
Welcome to the fire.
As stated you did not read what was posted and disputed the post by comparing oranges to apples. That won't fly around here as you know from all your previous reading.
Born,
By the sound of your posts you like to have a chance at really big rainbows, do you also like large cutts? They will get big also. Bigger than bows if we let them. That means releasing 23" and bigger fish to continue to grow. Many fishers won't do this. They catch a 24" cutt and thats a dead cutt. To bad.
If you want bows for the wall then you've probably had the best fishing you'll ever have. If you want bows for the table then fish Schofield, Jordenelle, Yuba, Rockperch and Deer Creek.
I for one think the DWR is doing a great job with the Berry. I have fished all over the country and Strawberry is the only place I have ever been where I can have a 30 fish day of 20" trout. I have friends who come here and I take them up to the best fishing of their lives. The Berry was poisoned and is being managed for one reason. That is to be filled with huge cutthroat trout, the DWR is doing that in a great way. Our concern should be that the cutts that were stocked are only 3.5". They will be eaten by the bigger cutts as soon as 3.5" bows.
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Don, welcome to the board. Glad to know you've been lurking out there and decided to jump in. I for one am very pleased how the Berry is being managed. I fish it almost exclusively an love it. Keep up the good work!
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They are doing what they say they are going to do. Look back at the fall 2004 plants. All the fish were fingerlings.
Remember one thing, you don't just pull 6-8" sterile rainbows out of a hat. They have to be grown. growing fish to that size and in numbers requires the dwr to rework their hatchery production. it's going to take a few years for that to happen. You also need to remember that the biologists in the field are not necessarily the ones running the hatcheries. From what I understand Roger has been working hard with salt Lake to get these issues resolved.
Since Strawberry is in the Colorado River drainage and not in the bonneville basin, The sterile rainbows and hybridization have very little to do with environmentalists, it is mostly there to protect the piscivorous nature of the Bear Lake Cutts. Although if kept pure strawberry still could be a "refuge" population.
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Mike, I do apologize for misinterpreting your post. The facts are we have never said we were going to stock 7 inch or larger rainbows that I know of. We are increasing the average size to 6 inches in hopes that we will get better survival from the cutthroat predation. We are facing a serious dilemma in the future with the need to suppress rough fish populations by maintaining lots of large predators with a limited capacity to stock lots of larger trout. We appear to be getting the job done on the non game fish but that in turn results in poorer survival of the stocked fish. We are likely to see a reduction in numbers of survivors to adult fish with the substantial adult population that has developed. Wild populations are cyclic and there are many factors controlling population sizes and composition which we cannot manage with any precision and therefore can only work at mitigating many forces out of our control. Strawberry is the premier fishery in our program but we have approximately 500,000 acres of flat water in Utah that also require our attention so we're spread pretty thin. I have been a fisheries biologist for 42 years. In none of my experience have I seen a better piece of research and management of a sport fishery and that experience includes three state agencies and two Federal. I have been in Utah for much of thirty years and overall I contend that the past ten years have been the best ever for angling in spite of the many reports about of the "good old days". Admittedly, some waters haven't been at their best from time to time but when they are down we've been very proactive at recovering them to the extent that our resources will permit. Thanks and good angling, Don
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Born2fish, I think the Dwr is doing a good job at Strawberry. One problem up there, that I constantly preach is: you can't keep all the rainbows and expect to have that many of them in the lake. Most people I fish with if they catch a Bow no matter what size, in the cooler it goes. The lake is managed for Cutts and the Rainbows are just a bonus. IMO I would like to see the Berry managed as a trophy fishery with a one fish over 26 inch limit. If you want a to take a bunch of fish home go to another lake and leave those small fish in the Berry to grow up. I know that will probably not happen, just look at the uproar the cutt slot created. Two years ago the talk was all the fish are in the slot we wont be able to keep any. Now reports of some fish over the slot are more and more comman. I see rainbows all the time at the fish cleaning station that if they were cutts would be in the slot and still swimming in the lake.
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Several good points. I guess is would take some time to grow larger sterile rainbows, and I am in favor of the direction Strawberry is headed and applaud the slot limit placed on Strawberry. I love catching big cuts, but catching those big bows is better, nothing fights like a 5 lb bow at the Berry. I was thrilled to hear about the planting of larger rainbow in the lake earlier this year and I guess I had too high of hopes on numbers and quantity. I don't mean to bash the DWR, I think they have many good qualified people running their programs and am in favor of 95% of what they do, I'm just trying to improve what we already have. Can anyone disagree that more bigger rainbows at the Berry is an improvement for an already outstanding fishery. I believe Strawberry has potential to be "not one of the", but "the" premier trophy lake fishing destinations in west. Maybe I have too high of hopes. How many remember fishing the berry in the mid 90's where almost every trip yielded 2 or 3 5lb bows? That was awesome.
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[cool][#0000ff]Let me offer my personal welcome to our playroom, and my personal opinion that you guys are doing a terrific job. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]You used the term "good old days". I have been fishing Utah waters since the early sixties, so I have a few rememberies my own self. I remember the first poisoning of Strawberry, in the fall of '61. I remember boatloads of "tanglers" scooping up the floating trout and leaving thousands of perch and other species to rot. And, there were a bunch of non-trout casualties from that treatment.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I was out of state during the second major treatment, but kept in touch with what was going on. I know that most of the Strawberry crowd was "limit-oriented", and the rainbows were heavily harvested. I followed the discussions on the plans to curb the exploding "rough fish" population through managed plantings of both Bear Lake cutts and sterile rainbows. Made sense to me. And, the results are certainly fantastic. Nothing succeeds like success.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I too have fished all over the country and I will testify that I know of no other body of water in the U.S. of A. that currently produces more quality fish per angler hours, in the size ranges typically experienced on Strawberry. It is working.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Yours is a thankless job, in many cases. You can't possibly keep everyone happy. Those who want a quality fishery are loving it. Those who still want to take home a cooler full of rainbows, to turn into cardboard in their freezers, don't like it.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Man, with all the variables you have to deal with, it is a wonder that the Strawberry fishery is what it is. Between bucket biologists, several years of drought, an evolving balance of the species, difficulty in monitoring and managing the harvest effectively (limited manpower) and disease containment issues, you guys have your work cut out for you.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Then, when you factor in a large part of the fishing contingent who still wants to take a limit of rainbows on every trip...or they are not getting their money's worth on their license...you seem to get a lot of blame but very little credit. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Sounds a lot like marriage, doesn't it?[/#0000ff]
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[reply] I believe Strawberry has potential to be "not one of the", but "the" premier trophy lake fishing destinations in west. Maybe I have too high of hopes. How many remember fishing the berry in the mid 90's where almost every trip yielded 2 or 3 5lb bows? That was awesome.[/reply]
I believe that many waters in utah have the potential to be "not one of the", but "the" premier trophy lake fishing destinations in the west. I would suggest that you check out some other rainbow waters in the state...Minersville would be a good one to start. In its heyday during the 90s, 2 or 3 5 lb bows per evening was a bad evening from my experience. I think it is quickly returning to that point...and, it is managed for large rainbows.
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I agree about the berry potentialy being the best. I think if we also protected the bows we would get there. I remember the mid 90s and all them hawgs. One day in 96 will stand out forever. Between me and my dad we caught 10 bows and 6 cutts over 25 inches. With the big bow going 28 inches and 10.5# and a 30 inch 8 #cutt. Never had so much success on big fish in one day before or after up there.
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