Gorge Fishing

[MudSlinger]

Well hit the Gorge Friday & Saturday.[cool]
Got on the water at7:30 fri morning with only a few bits by 10:00.
Pretty slow for my standards. We started trying trying everything in the box from all colors of needlefish to triple teasers. and even all my new shasta lures. Nothing worked. By 1:00 we were off the water. Finally went and bought something that always works,
some high priced worms[unsure]. Got some lunch and hit the water again at 5:30. Took the Dodger off and put on my small pop-gear and within 20 mins had my first fish. A 2 pound kokanee. Fished till 7:30
and landed a total of 5 fish between the 2 of us. Saturday morning got a late start, didn't get on the water till 9:00. Put on my high priced worm and hoped for the best. Got 3 more kokanee and could not keep the small lakers off. Caught 8 small one in 17 inch range and let all those go for another day. Was off the water by 2:00 due to the wind. I guess when all your fancy lures don't work. Put a worm on. We were fishing Swimbeach to Anvil.
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[Bigfishrule]

Quote from mudslinger:
"Caught eight small 17 inch range lakers and let them all go."

We need to HARVEST AS MANY OF THAT SIZE LAKER AS WE CAN RIGHT NOW. In fact the dwr is going to raise the limit to eight lakers with only one over 28 inches. There are too many small lakers in the gorge and they are starting to eat themselves out of house and home. The utah chubs that they dined on for years are all but gone there now. And they are dining on more and more kokanee and rainbows. When will the release all fish no matter what crowd learn that we sometimes need to harvest a few fish. The Gorge is going to crash hard if we dont start keping these small lakers. With two different state agencys (Utah and Wyoming) biologist saying the same thing. They will change the regs back when the mack population has come down to managable levels. Look at Lake Powell and how long it took them to convince people to keep strippers. First 100 fish limit then no limit at all. Finally the last three years they have had boom populations of shad. And the fish have gotten bigger each year. I can remeber catching hundreds of big headed skinny strippers for years every trip. Now we catch fewer fish each trip but they are a lot heathier. And I will take a few nice sized fish over a hundred starving fish every time.

Mud Slinger my appolgies for this souding like an attack on you. I dont mean it to be. I just thought I would raise this issue for debate.
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[magicmullet]

I agree with you that the fish need to be harvested but by someone that will make good use of them Id much rather see small fish then see the fish go from the lake to the freezer and then to the trash can.
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[MudSlinger]

I do agree that there is a big problem at the Gorge. In the past 10 years that I have been going up there the kokanee on the Utah side our going down hill fast. That's why we went to the Wyoming side, There much healthier and bigger. I've always kinda let the fish smaller than 17 inches go. I agree with Magicmullet, I can't catch them, let them sit in the freezer. the to the trash.... I just prefer the bigger size fish. But I did find a solution, My neighbor & his wife loves those small fish, and since he can't get out and fish anymore I will keep them for him. I'll be going back up Wednesday to get him dinner.
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[kokeking]

Bigfishrule,iam a little by your post.First you say you released all the little mack's you caught.Then in the next breath your telling everyone that we need to keep these size fish.I think you need to practice what your preaching.

I happen to agree that fishermen need to harvest more of these smaller macks,and with the new regs to take place next year i think it will help.
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[Bigfishrule]

Sorry about the confusion I was quoting mudslinger. I edited my post to clear up any confusion. I was not trying to put point fingers or put any one down. Just wanted to bring it to the attention of anyone who did'nt know that we should keep small lakers. I would hate to see this great fishery crash. If anyone wants to release the small lakers because they don't want them, thats ok. But in todays politically correct world some release fish just so they are not scorned.
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[kokeking]

ok,makes sense now,thanks for clearing up my confusion.
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