[
]Fished Mantua yesterday. Caught over 100 blusgills. It was fast and furious lots of them were 8 inchers. More people need to go and get a bunch of those and help thin them out a little bit.
[signature]
If every one takes the big ones then all you will have is small ones, it takes 3 to 4 years for a bluegill to reach 7 to 9 in.
[signature]
Yeah, right. You have to keep the big ones, so the little ones have a place to grow, If you don't harvest the big ones then all the fish become stunted. If it takes Blues 4 years to grow to 7" don't worry, there are a gazillion 5" in there waiting to grow.
Your bass don't seem to be able to control them so it is up to us.
[signature]
You have it backward if you take all the big ones then you have only little one and then you have every one saying they are stutied.
The big ones is what keeps the lake in line.
It is like a pyramid with a few big on top and on the bottom you have a lot of little ones for the big ones to eat and keep the lake in line, Yes you can take a few but if you take to many you let the small ones take over the lake.
[signature]
The pyrimid for Mantua has LMB at the top. Don't keep the LMB. Bluegill are down the pyrimid, I would bet they are below the perch. Perch are predators. Bluegill are not predators of other fish. They may eat a few very small fry, but they concentrate on bugs and small invertibrates.
Even in the face of a drought Pelicans limit was raised from 10 to 20 Bluegill. The state limit of 50 is for a reason, the Bluegill can take it.
Ever fish a small farm pond for years constantly catching the bluegill and keeping them? I have. Ponds smaller than some of the houses in SL. Never hurt them, always big ones to replace the ones I took. For years and years.
[signature]
Agreed ! As a child, my family had a farm pond(between 1/2 and 1 acre) that had bluegills, bass and catfish. We(me, my brothers and my friends) used to take hundreds of panfish(some of them were real slabs) on almost a daily basis all summer long with no apparent effect on the population of bluegills. Yes, they do take a long time to grow, but, they also produce an enormous amount of offspring that seem to survive if the conditions are there - as they are in Mantua.
That said, it is also a good idea to let some of the big ones reproduce - as the number of viable eggs from the large females can produce is much greater than that of the smaller females. This is more important where the population cannot tolerate or be sustained given the harvest. Personally, from my experience, because of the habitate, Mantua and Pelican can handle the pressure quite well - however, due to some environmental variables, some of our other waters cannot.
[signature]
Hey Magnaman,
What were you using to catch the larger BG's? Where was the best spot? I want to take my kids, but if I don't produce results they get right upset.
Thanks
[signature]
Hey Magnaman
Thanks for the report. I was wondering how are the weeds in the lake? Can you fish from the shore or is it totally grown over? I want to take my boy up for some early morning fast action bluegill fishing. I expect they are pretty thick, but hoping we can still get through with a worm on a bobber. Thanks again for the report.
Bigpapafish
[signature]
I did not say that it would be in danger, but time has shone that all lakes in Utah has boom and bust and if you get a lot of fishmen at one lake thinking that they cannot hurt a fishery well look at Deer creek and Yuba and Pelican and even Lake Powell all have seen a boom and bust some have recoved some may never.
So lets just say that we need to leave some of the big ones for seed or I should say to reseed.
[signature]
Bassrods is correct to degree. Traditional belief is that bluegill stunt because of too little harvest. However some studies are showing that if only the largest bluegill are taken then through natural selection smaller fish are left to do the spawning and they will not grow to a large size to spawn. Large spawners will actually prevent many of the smaller fish from spawning by forcing them out of prime locations. According to the study I read anglers should harvest the moderate sized (7-8 inch) bluegill and release the larger 10"+ brutes to do the spawning to ensure a population of fish that will grow to large proportions. I do agree with Tubedude that most anglers aren't able to find/catch the trophy gills with regularity. It's good to see Mantua has such a good population of sunfish.
[signature]
We were using white curly tail sixteenth ounce jigs you did'nt need to tip them with anything either.
[signature]
[
]Hey bigpapafish there were people fishing from the shore i think it'll be fine for awile
[signature]
Kill em all!!!! LoL! I don't think we need to worry about the gills too much, as long as people don't get too greedy!!!!!!
[signature]
Thanks Mag! You da Man!
[signature]
[
]Thanks for the info Magnaman. I just didn't want to make the drive only to have the shore choked out with weeds.[cool]
[blush]Bigpapafish[angelic]
ps: my 3 1/2 year old is sitting with me and he really likes adding happy faces....[laugh] [crazy]
[signature]
At Yuba it was a combation of fisherman as well as the walleye.
The fisherman catch the big spaners and the walleye eat the small ones that is what happen on different years. I have fished Yuba for 40 years and until the perch got popular they could hold their own with the walleye and low water. The same is true with Deer Creek I have seen the trout fisherman through the perch out on the bank, but until the perch was sate after they held there own.
[signature]
The biology of DC ,when the trout fishermen chucked perch on the bank (the 60's and 70's), was very different from what it is now. There were trout, perch, and a few LMB that only a few people fished for. Then the walleye were "bucket biology" introduced and became well established in the 80's. Then the DWR put in smallies there which became more widespread than the LMB. The DWR accurately predicted, once the walleye were showing up in large numbers, that the perch would crash, and they did. Harvest could have been a small part, but there were bigger issues that had a much bigger effect. With two (new) predators in there now, we will never see the perch numbers there like we did,even with reduced harvest, although we will hopefully see them come back some. As for Mantua and the gills, one of the main reasons that the DWR was so dismayed about the perch being "bucket bio'ed" there was that they would agressively steal from bluegill nests and decimate them. They also hammer the fry pretty heavily. So, the best thing an angler can do to insure a healthy gill fishery over the long haul is to keep a limit of perch. It is good though to hear that the gills are numerous at the present time.
[signature]
You just said another thing as to why the larger blues should have a lement for size so they will keep some good spanners in the lake so when the bad times come it may not be so bad, and the perch will not push or eat the bluegills out.
I'm not saying not to take a few gills I'm saying use your head and leave some of the big bluegills for seed.
[signature]