Henry's

[curt69]

What location are you looking for ?
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[wiperhunter2]

[quote lucky_water_nut]I tried to google the location but could not find it. Could you post location or pm me with directions. Thanks in advance i have ice fever.........[/quote]
Were you looking in Utah or Idaho? Henry's is South of Yellowstone Nat Park.
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[drowning_flys]

[quote PBH][quote drowning_flys]Wouldn't it be better to have a no fish over 20 and 5 or 6 under, if its going to be a trophy fishery again the big fish need protected and the little ones reduced. [/quote]

this here ^^ is a problem. The problem is that the majority of anglers simply do not understand fish biology. So they come up with a "deer" type management idea: protect the big ones.

the problem with this is that you never end up with any big fish to protect, and thus your slot is no good. If you have too many fish, average size will continue to go down. Eventually, you have a lake full of small fish with NO big fish to protect.



Get the population size down. How do you do that?

A. reduce stocking
B. if reduction in stocking isn't enough, then you must increase harvest. You cannot increase harvest by protecting fish.[/quote]

Never claimed to e a fish biologist it was a question Just thought if its overstocked now increasing the limit of the smaller fish would eventualy get the lake back in check along with stocking reduction. sure ya can havrvest the smaller fish more of them daily limit of 5 or 6 with 12 in possession would be a good start
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[PBH]

[quote FSHRGLF][font "Times New Roman"][size 3][/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Calibri"]You are applying the wrong principles to the lake. Only 10,000 of the million fish planted survive to be catchable. And only 500 of those make it to the 7+ year age class. The fish caught yesterday were healthy from a great food supply. Large fish feed on the small fish in this food chain. Reducing stocking numbers will not support the trophy trout population but quite the opposite.[/font][/size]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3][/size][/font][/quote]

Henry's Lake is plenty fertile to grow large fish (fast!) without a forage base. You do not need to run a fish feeding stocking program to grow those fish.

If you have too many fish, then you MUST reduce those fish to grow them big. You CANNOT keep adding more fish if your population is too high. It simply does not work.


your comments may work, IF your population is not too high. But, from the comments made in this thread it sounds like most believe that there are too many fish. Adding more to the bucket won't work.




(Lee's Ferry grew fish in excess of 15lbs for numerous years on nothing more than scuds!! Boulder Mountain grows 20" brook trout in 4 years on amphipods. Henry's has that same potential, as a relatively low elevation, large surface area, shallow lake)
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[FSHRGLF]

I must admit the fish numbers are not mine. I ran the question past my fish biologist who does study the Henry's Fork drainage as part of his work. We talked about it as we looked at the great ice fishing pictures. He did comment on the missing color on the brookies which made them look like lake trout. Certainly balance is important in any resource. The Strawberry cuts I caught this fall were much thinner than the Henrys cuts. The few rainbows from Strawberry were thicker.

The fish not caught by the regulars has me puzzled. They fish it everyday for years and they are having trouble getting hits. They are seeing them with their fish finders but....
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[PBH]

[quote drowning_flys][

Never claimed to e a fish biologist it was a question Just thought if its overstocked now increasing the limit of the smaller fish would eventualy get the lake back in check along with stocking reduction. [/quote]

It certainly would help to increase harvest of smaller fish. But the most significant help would be ANY harvest of ANY fish.


When you have a healthy system those "big" fish that are lost to mortality are very quickly replaced by another fish that grows FAST and turns into another "big" fish. That's the magic spot that you want -- fast fish growth = big fish. Slow fish growth = small fish. Reduce numbers of fish (all fish) and you enter that zone of fast fish growth. The big fish will show up -- you don't need to protect them.
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[FSHRGLF]

I can put each fish I catch into an age class based on size. Big fish reqire time/age. I don't think that the fast growth replacement theory fits.

In a related matter, how many pounds of fish does a pelcian eat per day? I have seen hundreds on the lake at one time in the spring with 40 or so in residency to the fall.
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[PBH]

[quote FSHRGLF]I can put each fish I catch into an age class based on size. Big fish reqire time/age. I don't think that the fast growth replacement theory fits. [/quote]

You're better than most biologists! Big fish require time, but not in the sense that most mammals do. An old fish does not = a big fish. Fish growth is indeterminate as opposed to mammals where growth is determinate. Large fish are the result of fast growth.

[quote FSHRGLF]In a related matter, how many pounds of fish does a pelcian eat per day? I have seen hundreds on the lake at one time in the spring with 40 or so in residency to the fall.[/quote]

Pelicans, as well as other pisciverous bird (ie: cormorants) can be a real problelm with fisheries. While I cannot tell you how many fish a pelican will eat in a day. But I CAN tell you that in 1989 (March - October) cormorants consumed an estimated 5069kg of fish (~12,000lbs!) at Minersville Reservoir in southern Utah. Trout made up 44% of that total! These numbers are based off of a daily consumption rate of 465 g per bird per day. That's a little over 1lb of fish per day per bird.

In 1988 the estimated consumption of catchable-size trout by loons and cormorants was greater than the estimated sportfish harvest by anglers!
See the attached document for all the information you could ever want concerning cormorants!


what did Utah do to correct this problem? They went to special regulations (artificial flies and lures only) with restrictive harvest regulations as well as changed stocking practices (spring vs fall) and stocking sizes (increased stocking size to get past bird predation size).

Is this an issue at Henry's? I don't know. If it is, then they have options.
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[flygoddess]

[quote FSHRGLF][font "Times New Roman"][size 3][/size][/font]
[size 3][font "Calibri"]You are applying the wrong principles to the lake. Only 10,000 of the million fish planted survive to be catchable. And only 500 of those make it to the 7+ year age class. The fish caught yesterday were healthy from a great food supply. Large fish feed on the small fish in this food chain. Reducing stocking numbers will not support the trophy trout population but quite the opposite.[/font][/size]
[font "Times New Roman"][size 3][/size][/font][/quote]



May I ask where or who you are getting your information from? Seven years? I was always under the 4 year impression. And for years, gill netting showed that the Large Cutts and Hybrids did not make a diet out of small fish.. Going off the Gill netting, there was very little evidence of this. They do feed on the vegetation and insects.
Not saying it is not possible to catch them with a bait fish.
The 36" I landed 7 years ago was maybe 4 years old and according to Damon, probably it's last year. Bill Shiess had on a couple inches larger. I caught several that year in the 30+" range but they were not the fast and furious guarantee they are today.
Then the year of the bad algae bloom and yes a lot of fish belly up. It has never had the chance to bounce back
I still believe for many years that lake was a true Blue Ribbon fishery, but the mix/balance was since messed with so to speak.
If anyone can figure it out I have full faith in Damon and Dan, but they can only do so much.

I could be way off base on this and that is why I come to you with these questions. Thank you/
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[FSHRGLF]

There was a web site for Henrys which is no longer in service which wrote about the seven+ year life span for the Henrys trout. I wished I had copied and saved before it went down because it had a lot of great information.

I usually just cut them in half and count the rings.

Another biolgist was telling me today that in a study in another area for tagged catchables (6-10 in.) that 85% of the tags were found at cormorant nesting sites. And we have plenty of the Quake Lake comorants at Henrys.
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[flygoddess]

Thank you. This site has some good info.
http://www.henryslakefoundation.com/cutthroat.php
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[curt69]

Talked to Damon today . He says the ice fishing season will remain the way it is . Had a fun day fishing , finely caught a few . 20" was the biggest . Seen some nice brookies caught .
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[flygoddess]

I to talked to Damon Tuesday. He said there were not many ice fishing this week but that will change after Thanksgiving. And he said there were a few 6lbers coming out, so still a chance at a 25" or 26"er.
No plans to extend the ice fishing season any time soon so, get out and keep a limit.
And for you Salt Lakers, it is about a 5 to 6 hour drive. Worth it.
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[curt69]

Seen a lot of fish caught today . None over 22 " for us . This storm is going to be a game changer for a while .
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