Fishing Forum

Posted Thursday, July 29, 2004

Allowing use of bait at Mantua Reservoir among fishing recommendations for 2005
SALT LAKE CITY — Anglers could use bait at Mantua Reservoir and spearfish for striped bass and carp at Lake Powell under regulations the Division of Wildlife Resources is proposing for Utah's 2005 fishing season.
People can give DWR biologists their input about the proposals at an upcoming series of public meetings. Citizens representing Utah's five Regional Advisory Councils will take the public input received to the Utah Wildlife Board when it meets Sept. 9 in Salt Lake City to approve Utah's 2005 Fishing Proclamation.
Meeting dates, times and locations are as follows: [ul] [li]Northeastern Region
Aug. 16, 7 p.m.
Vernal City Office
447 E. Main St., Vernal [/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Southeastern Region
Aug. 17, 6:30 p.m.
John Wesley Powell Museum
885 E. Main St., Green River [/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Southern Region
Aug. 18, 7 p.m.
Beaver High School
195 E. Center St., Beaver [/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Central Region
Aug. 24, 6:30 p.m.
Department of Natural Resources
1594 W. North Temple, Salt Lake City [/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Northern Region
Aug. 25, 6 p.m.
Brigham City Community Center
24 N. 300 W., Brigham City [/li][/ul]
Proposed Changes at Mantua Reservoir
The introduction of yellow perch, which were stocked illegally into Mantua Reservoir east of Brigham City, has led the Division of Wildlife Resources to recommend three fishing changes at the reservoir for 2005: [ul] [li]Remove the artificial flies and lures only restriction and allow the use of bait. [li]Establish a daily yellow perch limit of 50 fish. [li]Remove the requirement that anglers release trout that have had their adipose fin clipped off. [/li][/ul]
"The illegal stocking of yellow perch has changed our management direction at the reservoir," said Tom Pettengill, sport fisheries coordinator for the DWR. "The perch population is booming, and we need to change the regulations to allow anglers to take many more perch than they can under the existing regulations."
One option is to chemically treat the reservoir. That would kill all of its sport fish, however, including its thriving largemouth bass and bluegill populations. "The best way to remove perch is to let anglers fish for them more effectively and to do that, we need to allow the use of bait," he said.
Allowing anglers to use bait will mean that a higher percentage of trout caught at the reservoir will likely die if they're released. The DWR wanted to use the reservoir as a brood stock reservoir to raise Kamloops rainbows and had placed an artificial flies and lures only restriction at the reservoir to protect those fish.
"The experiment to raise Kamloops rainbows at the reservoir hasn't worked out very well," Pettengill said. "The reservoir grows big fish but there doesn't appear to be enough habitat to raise a large number of them.
"We haven't given up on our Kamloops brood stock program, however," he said. "We'll be shifting the program to one of our hatcheries."
Other fishing highlights
Other fishing regulation changes being proposed by the DWR for 2005 include the following: [ul] [li]Allow spear fishing for striped bass and carp at Lake Powell.
[li]Raise the daily bluegill limit at Pelican Lake to 20 fish. The current limit is 10. "Many of the bluegill at Pelican Lake have a parasite called yellow grub," Pettengill said. "As long as they're properly cooked, these fish are safe to eat. Many anglers won't eat them, though, and the number of bluegills being taken from the lake has declined. We want to give anglers who'll eat the fish a chance to take some additional fish home." Pelican Lake is in northeastern Utah. [/li][/ul]
Allow year-round fishing at Sheep Creek Lake in northeastern Utah, where the Colorado River cutthroat trout population is doing well. "Some areas at the lake may remain closed during the spawning season, so if this rule passes, anglers will need to watch for closure signs during spring and early summer," Pettengill said. Sheep Creek Lake is in northeastern Utah.
For more information, call the nearest Division of Wildlife Resources office or the DWR's Salt Lake City office at (801) 538-4700.
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Personally, I think it's a great idea. I'm not sure how it will impact the bass or bluegill fishery, but if the perch are going to pose that much of a problem, then let's encourage people to get them out of there.

Should make for an interesting ice season this winter.
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Thanks for posting that Kent. It will be interesting to see how much opposition there will be to the Mantua proposal. If it were better for the trout I might have a few reservations but as is I think it would be a good change. Plus it would be a heck of a lot easier to fish the lake without having to disect my tackle to remove flavor enhanced artificials each time I go.
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Actually, theres more to the story than this.
I discussed this with the man responsible for this decision in some depth this spring.
Craig schaugard is the biologist who is in charge of mantua, and is directly responsible for making these types of decisions.
The big trout die off last summer that killed hundreds of trout when the water temp got over 80 degrees and there wasnt enough deep water that was cool enough to support that many trout played a big factor in his decision as well.
Basically mantua has been tried as a trout fishery many times, this is just the latest. It has never worked before, and wont work the next time they try either.
The perch will do like they do with every lake in this state, overpopulate, stunt, and in mantua, they are expected by the DWR to destroy the bluegill population. How? Craig told me that perch are incredible nest robbers. They will ravage bluegill nests in huge numbers until the gills cant protect thier nest anymore and the eggs are gone.
As the gills numbers are reduced, the perch may crash, leaving mantuas already overpopulated and stunted bass without a food base, destroying the bass fishery. Wich is already destroyed by the way.
Now, are the perch to blame? No. Mantua had a perfectly balanced ecosystem prior to the poisoning of the chubs, and planting of the trout this last time around. The average LMB size in there was 2 lbs, with 4 and 6 LBers beign caught regularly.
After the rotenone, the lake was void of fish, and the northern utah B.A.S.S. put the few largemouth they saved back into the lake. Well, the LMB then spawned, and due to the lack of any predators, they all survived, repeated the cycle, and what you have today is a lake full of LMB that are stunted and overpopulated badly.
I am not one to bash the DWR. Any of you who know me, know I am one of thier biggest supporters.
They have realized thier mistake, and are now in fix it mode. It likley will never return to the great bass fishery it was due to the ignorance of the individuals who illegally put the perch in there.
But it would have never had many of these problems had the DWR not tried to turn it into a trout fishery again.
Hopefully this is the last attempt to turn mantua into a trout fishery.
I believe that if the DWR will manage it as a bass fishery, and manage it effectivley, it can be returned to one of the states best LMB lakes.
Its unfortunate that mantua has had to endure this over the past several years.
But, it is good to see that the stupid artificial only regs will be lifted, and people will be encouraged to help in the fixing of this fishery.
Hopefully every perch that gets caught out of there will be killed, hopefully the DWR will put a slot limit in place to protect the bigger bass, and encourage the harvest of the smaller overpopulated ones, Hopefully the bluegills will survive the perch and stablilze as the food base in the lake, and the good lord willing, they will stop trying to turn it into a trout fishery. After four attempts that I know of, somebody down there ought to get the idea that it aint gonna work.
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I used to fish Mantua a lot in the 80's before I moved away and it was phenomenal for fat gills and bass. Just playing devils advocate here, what about poisoning the lake and starting over with gills, bass and chubs like it was then?
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One problem is that you still have the bucket biologists who feel that perch should be in there, who will likely immediately turn around and plant the perch again. There goes the chubs (ie Fish Lake).
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Hello There Predator

Thank you for the additional about Mantua there, Like you I do support the efforts of the UDWR in most cases. Like you I think this is a good step in bringing Mantua back to a natural state. It will take some time for this to happen. But I have observed that nature well recover if we humans stop micro managing it, and help in doing small general course by some of the things listed. I myself will attending one of meetings that planned and voice my support for those changes.
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Iagree, gills, bass, and chubs. Within a couple years, there will be fat 4lb lmb. Look at jordanelle's forage, as an example, mainly chubs. Perch are beginning to factor in, but the chubs are still supporting the smallies.
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