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Flygoddess you're right. I majored as a fisheries biologist and brook trout are more cannibal as a fish species. Yellowstone cutts and rainbows (not all subspecies) tend to eat less fish than brooks and browns. I have suggested that something needs to be done about the size of the fish in Henrys. A few years ago I suggested on this website that it would be nice to increase the limit at Henrys to three fish. Wow!! I got jumped by several members with comments such as "how many trophies do you want anyway!"
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has recognized there is a problem now with too many fish in Henry's Lake. When they recently restored access to some of the rivers tributary to Henry's Lake, the natural spawning of the cutts shot up and are now adding a greater portion of wild fish naturally spawned to the lake. To correct the over population the Dept. will be stocking less hatchery spawned fish. With hatchery spawned fish the Dept had more control over the numbers of fish stalked in the lake and could control the quantity of fish to increase fish size. In the 1950 and 60's the average weight of henry's fish was about two pounds. After that the size dropped to 1 1/2 lbs which indicated they were stalking more fish to improve the catch rate per hour to keep the fisherman happy but the fish decreased in size. Hope this helps.
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Kinda, weird to me.
When the hard deck was on. Everyone was worried?
Now, lets go fishing! Wow.Gotta Love this Lake.
Fish On.
Idaho
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No one expected the naturals to take off like they did. Have to ask yourself, what changed and why, and even when.
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The changed was the fish's access to spawning areas in the creeks.
They have been working on it for several of years. I just don't think they were expecting to see the numbers come up so quickly.
The Henrys Lake Foundation along with F&G and other partners have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to screen diversions and open blocked creeks. It is working!
If any of you are really interested in what is going on at Henrys, I suggest that you read the Henry's Lake Foundation news letters. Of special interest may be this one that discusses the chubs and spawning etc.
http://www.henryslakefoundation.com/news...-12-01.pdf
The letter archive is here:
http://www.henryslakefoundation.com/newsletters.php
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Now maybe they'll be able to impact the Pelicans. ![[Image: dumb.gif]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/images/gforum/dumb.gif)
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I hope so. The pelican problem is growing, but at least they are proactively looking at it.
Here is a video of some of the projects if anyone is interested.
The video embed box wouldn't take the link again.
[url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uNLMroskTZM"]http://www.youtube.com/...bedded&v=uNLMroskTZM[/url]
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beating a dead horse here but The original argument wasnt whether cutts and hybrids eat less fish, thats obvious. It was said in a very early post that got this debate started, cutts and hybrids dont eat any (which is false).
good links cpierce interesting stuff.
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Sorry, I wasn't talking about what eats what. I was addressing what had changed to increase the numbers of cutts and the corresponding decrease in average fish size. There is a lot of good information in that last newsletter that summarized the latest findings and also talks about what they are currently studying and working on.
I thought the fish eating question had already been discussed pretty fully. .... Yes, fish eat fish especially if there is more competition. As has been brought out it wasn't about them never eating any fish, but that traditionally in the past surveys fish were only a small part of their diet there. That is fact.
That is also changing, as the environment of the lake is changing with the increased numbers of natural cutts and especially since F&G stocked more brooks. The brookies are known to be very piscivorous as they get larger.
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None of that was towards you cpierce. I meant I was beating a dead horse by posting. Your links have good info in them.
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I wasn't attacking. I hope it didn't sound that way. I was just trying to clarify what I was posting about. Sometimes the intent and meaning gets lost on forum posts! [crazy] [cool]
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I also stated you proved them wrong. My comment was that I was told, they do not eat fish, you are correct it is false. Is that better? This was told to me many years ago, we have established, things have changed.
Several on here have pointed out that it is not their normal diet. I did say I am sure they do eat some.
Think it was covered, but I could be wrong.
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It's all good in my eyes. Any conversation that has cpierce or flygoddess in, I know I will be learning something. Thanks to both of you for always being willing to share your input and knowledge!
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One thing I hadn't noticed before in that newsletter was the comment on page 4 about brook trout.
"the IDFG is attempting to change the source of the annual brook trout fry planted from Canada to Wyoming in order to be able to stock sterile more colorful male fish as well as sterile female fish."
Obviously F&G have listened and are trying to add the males back in. If they are successful, that should make for some amazing brook trout catches.
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[quote cpierce]One thing I hadn't noticed before in that newsletter was the comment on page 4 about brook trout.
"the IDFG is attempting to change the source of the annual brook trout fry planted from Canada to Wyoming in order to be able to stock sterile more colorful male fish as well as sterile female fish."
Obviously F&G have listened and are trying to add the males back in. If they are successful, that should make for some amazing brook trout catches.[/quote]this gets me to my question on all Tue stocking up there and even big in Idaho. Why put all this money into stocking sterile fish instead of putting the same money and resources into improving natural spawning grounds and doing a long term solution instead of a short term bandaid.
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Just for giggles I opened the stomachs of the 4 fish we kept today. All four had some combo of minnows, and bullheads.
I even got one nice bullhead that I will reuse as bait next trip[cool]
One big fat brookie had 2 bullheads and 3 minnows.
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Understanding that fish are opportunistic feeders, and I imagine the hatches are few and far right now, coupled with already stated, depletion of under water food, I think this was a no brainer. But thanks for the report.
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I doubt the snail population or leech population has been depleted in Henry's. His stomach investigation with minnow content mirrors what I have found for 50 years. ![[Image: happy.gif]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/images/gforum/happy.gif)
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Food supply definately wasnt depleted. I picked up a few small underwater logs and they were covered with scuds and damselfly nymphs.
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You win. Biologist and Dan don't what their talking about. Plain and simple.
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What did I win? All I am doing is having a conversation where I am giving my opinion and others are giving theirs. Then I just reported what I saw while fishing this weekend. THAT IS ALL!!!!!! THIS IS NOT AN ARGUEMENT. I am not trying to prove anyone wrong. what you see and are told I am sure is completely valid. What I have said is what I (me personally have seen).
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