[#0000FF]I had heard that DWR would be doing their annual fish netting survey this past week, so I sent off an inquiry to Chris Penne. Asked if he had any preliminary observations he could share with us, pending final number crunching and report. As usual, he responded with some good info. Thanks, Chris.[/#0000FF]
Yes, we just wrapped up our netting this week and I've got some initial impressions. As always, it will be best to wait and see how the data plays out in our report, but there is definitely some info worth sharing. I'll include some pictures this time too to help tell a bit of the story.
Wiper: wiper numbers are still trending down, but we did observe good numbers of yearling fish, which were around 12-15" long and will be ready to catch next year. We also noted a fair number of fish stocked just this year, which is encouraging and may signal some good recruitment of this year's stocked fish. It's too early to tell how successful those fish from this year's stocking have been as they are still too small to efficiently capture in our nets. I think we've still got a couple years of rebuilding to do on the wiper fishery now that our big year class from 2014 has finally thinned out, but the good news is that we seem to be getting better recruitment from our recent stockings of fish now that the 2014 fish aren't competing as much with the young fish for space and food.
Walleye: walleye numbers looked excellent and we are still trending upwards in numbers. The big year class of fish from 2017 showed up and those fish that are just a little over 1.5 years old are now and already pushing 16" long. We saw all sizes of walleye: fish that were 8-12" long (this year's spawn and stock), 14-16" fish (yearlings spawned in 2017), and then the fish 18" and longer (made up of several year classes). We'll have to see how the final catch summary turns out, but it looked to me like the walleye were catching up to the catfish as the dominant predator fish in the reservoir.
Catfish: catfish numbers are still high, but it looks like they are finally coming down. Catfish numbers have been really high in recent years, so going down a bit won't be a problem. We still observed juvenile catfish, so they are still recruiting. They just likely haven't had as successful of spawns the past couple years due to the higher water. Not to mention they were the main fish caught by anglers this year, so I'm sure there were quite a few harvested in 2018.
Crappie: great news here - we saw quite a few crappie in the nets. These were around 7-8" long and some of them may start showing up for the spawn next year.
Shad: numbers of adults were about the same as usual.
We did see some perch, but we never have enough in our nets to really allow us to make any inferences as to whether there numbers are going up or down. The yellow perch just always seem to be in the background of our catch; we always observe some but they make up a very small proportion of what we catch. Oh, and we did not see any bullheads in the nets either.
I'll be sure to send the report as soon as it's finished. We're still wrapping up our surveys and population work right now, so it will be December or January before everything is written up and finalized. As always feel free to pass any questions my way.
Chris
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And also as usual, the biggest "stocking success" is with our anticipation level. Looking forward to a good year.
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Thanks for staying on top of the fishing or in this case netting reports. Preliminary sounds optimistic.
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Tks for checking in with Chris for us on Willard....that kind of info is much appreciated, and for most of us, unknown, except for your passing it on....tks again....
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[#0000FF]You are quite welcome. But just in case you hadn't noticed, I have a personal interest my own self. Just passing on what I dig up for my own eddimacation.[/#0000FF]
[#0000FF]I appreciate your appreciation.
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Thanks Pat and Chris, very fun to see what the nets are telling us. Hope they continue to do well. Thanks J
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Awesome information here. TX. Curious as to why no mention of SM Bass? Is this cause they tend to stay in the rocks and don't get caught up in the nets, are there numbers lower than that if the perch or other reasons?
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[#0000FF]Hmmmmm. I didn't catch that one either. Bad pun.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]I'm surprised there was no mention of the smallies. I'm sure there were some in the nets. But, like perch, they are not a major part of the biomass. However, the past couple of years...with higher water...there seems to have been an increase in numbers...at least in numbers caught. Also, there seemed to be a bit more size to some and more smaller youngsters.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]I will fire off an inquiry to Chris and get his response.
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[quote tigerpincer]Awesome information here. TX. Curious as to why no mention of SM Bass? Is this cause they tend to stay in the rocks and don't get caught up in the nets, are there numbers lower than that if the perch or other reasons?[/quote]
[#0000FF]I asked Chris about the bass...smallmouths AND largemouths. Both are in Willard, but smallies are in greater numbers. I also questioned a comment he made about catfish not spawning as well in higher water years. My observations have been that they usually spawn BETTER when the water is higher up into the rocks of the dike. Here is his response. (Thanks again, Chris)[/#0000FF]
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Good question. My window of observations on the catfish is shorter than yours, but my observations during the drought years were that we saw better catfish recruitment in those years than when the water was up (i.e., more young cats in the gill nets). I've got a working theory on this, which is that the lower water level in the drought years allows the water to warm up quicker and gives the cats an earlier start to their spawn. There was a graduate student that studied channel catfish spawning in Willard Bay many years ago and he found that instead of using the holes in the rocks along the face of the dike, the catfish prefer to use the interface between the rocks and the bottom substrate, so it appears the available spawning habitat for catfish stays pretty much the same whether the water is up or down. With this in mind, the shallower the water, the quicker that area at the bottom of the rocks warms up. Like I said though, you may have more years of observation than me and this is not something we have studied intensely - it's more just a few observations and a theory so I am in no way saying my theory should be taken as gospel.
Regarding the bass, we see some in our nets but it is much the same story as the yellow perch which is that we don't have enough to really draw any conclusions. I think this is less a bass numbers thing than it is a gear thing as I'm pretty sure there are tons of them making a pretty good living along the dike. Smallmouth and largemouth bass are both very visual predators and they move a lot less compared to the fish like wiper, walleye, and catfish. Because of those two things, they are much less likely to get caught in gill nets as they can usually see and avoid the net and they don't move around enough to get tangled in them often either. That is why biologists use electrofishing to survey bass populations, as with electrofishing we are actively traveling the shoreline to intercept and catch them instead of waiting for them to run into a net.
Chris
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Thanks for that update Pat and Chris, I assume the bluegill fall into that same category so they didn't show up either. Anyway thanks again this is fun info to consider. Later J
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[#0000FF]In the "olden days"...BS (before shad...and wipers)...there were lots of both bluegills and green sunfish. In fact, it was legal to use whole dead green sunfish for bait. Caught lots of bluegills inside the marinas and some places around the dikes. They really schooled up inside the south marina under the ice and you could fill a bucket with them.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Since bluegills and green sunfish stay small (bite size for wipers) for a couple of years, a lot of them get eaten during the months when there are no eating size shad in the system. Ditto for small crappies. That is one reason for the fewer numbers of crappies compared to earlier times.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Like bass, bluegills like to hang near the rocks...and inside the marinas. So they are less likely to show up in nets set out away from the dikes. There are still bluegills to be caught...and some nice sized ones. But there are just not the numbers nor many fishermen who fish in the right places with the right tackle.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Here is a picture of one I caught a couple of years ago while pitching plastic for crappies. I can't remember the last green sunfish I saw from Willard. There used to be swarms of them all along the rocks and up into the inlet channel at the south marina.
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Pat, I caught two nice green sunfish on successive casts this Spring just west of the outlet along the north dike. Didn't take photos, unfortunately, because the smallies were hitting like there was no tomorrow and I wanted to get back to them.
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Years passed I used to catch some trolling the north dike, but since all the growth from the low water years I can't fish that area without snagging up. Was fun there for awhile with the smallies and crappie and cats and eyes, I'd get five species most trips that summer. Haven't done that for several years though.
So with the report of good walleye numbers do you think it would be possible to ever do very well for eyes through the ice. How would you locate likely areas in a pond that big? Be fun if we could figure out a way to get onto them. Do you think those rock piles might start attracting them? Later J
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"How would you locate likely areas in a pond that big? Be fun if we could figure out a way to get onto them. Do you think those rock piles might start attracting them?"
[#0000FF]If I had the ability to answer those questions do you think I would divulge it for free...on a public forum? Or...if I had the magic solutions my reports would be full of pictures of toothy critters...not whiskery ones. I know most of the biology and the theories. But that does not give the the decoder ring to be able to figure out walleyes on every trip.
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[#0000FF]Sorry DWR folks. The fact that you get a few in the nets does not translate into an abundant fishery for anglerkind. In the renowned walleye waters of the midwest there is usually an aggressive annual stocking program and abundant forage species for year round feeding. This produces hundreds of fish for every angler...so if even just a small percentage take your bait or lure you still do well. In Willard there are relatively few fish...widely scattered throughout the whole lake. If you are good...and lucky...you will catch one here and one there. More than two or three in a day and you pat yourself on the back.
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[#0000FF]As with most Utah waters and most Utah species, what you are able to find and catch is largely a matter of the food chain. If you know what the fish are eating, and where it is currently hanging out, you have a better chance of finding your target species. But in some large waters (like Willard), the bait is constantly moving and so do the predators. Where you found fish yesterday (or an hour ago) is likely to be barren on your next trip. It takes some basic knowledge, good sonar, a bit of gas and a lot of luck to find the fish.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Long-time Willardites with good sonar have usually found a few humps and bumps or rare structure on the bottom that often hold fish. But they usually understand that unless there is food or something else to hold the fish there, those spots can be barren most of the time. Oh yeah, the guys I know that have some GPS honey holes don't seem too anxious to post up the numbers for the rest of us.[/#0000FF]
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Ok I guess I wandered head on into that one and I wouldn't blame anyone for keeping a good spot to themselves, especially when they are so difficult to catch through the ice. I just got carried away after watching videos of the walleye ice fishing on Lake Erie. Sure did look like fun, but I think you may have told us why they can do that and we can't. Oh well, always fun to dream anyway. Later J
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There are still green sunfish in Willard. Wasnt but 3 yrs back I took a very small baby crawdads jug and pitched along the rocks. I caught 30 sunfish. They were small but made for a fun evening.
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[#0000FF]Good to know they are still in there. I guess they are just being a bit more careful these days with all the other hungry mouths in the lake.
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[#0000FF][b]Sorry DWR folks. The fact that you get a few in the nets does not translate into an abundant fishery for anglerkind. In the renowned walleye waters of the midwest there is usually an aggressive annual stocking program and abundant forage species for year round feeding. This produces hundreds of fish for every angler...so if even just a small percentage take your bait or lure you still do well. In Willard there are relatively few fish...[/quote]
Hmmm...so what you are saying is done in the midwest is that they take their aquariums (fisheries) stack them full of fish and then manually feed them to keep their artificially inflated numbers high enough to maintain an abundant healthy fishery.
Geez, I am glad we don't waste money doing that!
On a different note, though, I wondered about the walleye population when I read this thread for the simple fact that so many complain about the harvest and fishing in the inlet each year. I thought it would be interesting to see what the DWR's netting showed...and, it was. I have read several reports saying that fishing for walleye has been tough this year and many wondered if walleye numbers are low. You seem to think they are still low despite these trend netting results. I wonder if the population is higher than you think and fishing has been tough because resident fish have a good food supply at the moment and are just difficult to catch. I wonder this because of what I see in other waters with other fish.
Walleye are known to be tougher to catch and particularly finicky fish. What kind of food supply do they have now? Is it abundant compared to other years or different? Is the DWR still stocking tiny wiper fry to supplement the wiper population, or are they stocking larger fry? Could this be a reason that walleye have been tough to catch--lots of little wipers to munch on?
Anyway, just a couple thoughts...
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[quote TubeDude][#0000FF][b]In the "olden days"...BS (before shad...and wipers)...there were lots of both bluegills and green sunfish.[/quote]
Yes! Back in 1992, I worked for USU as a prospective fishery student and was tasked with keeping some fish cages in Willard clean for a day. So, I swam from cage to cage brushing debris off cages and then helped build new cages. As I was doing this, I kept seeing little bluegill and quite a few little green sunfish swimming around those cages.
Then, out of nowhere I felt a quick short piercing pain in my left nipple. I looked down and could see small drops of blood dripping down my breast as I jumped from the water. After squealing about the pain for a few minutes and not knowing what had happened, I soon realized that I had been attacked by a sunfish and been bitten on the nipple! Those little buggers are mean!
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You have now entered the Twilight Zone.
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