I went up to Jordanelle to fish but when I got there the wind was bad and I seen the DWR people with the gill nets....
What I seen and heard was not good.....
The numbers of fish is way down on perch and chubs and the sizes of trout was smaller in weight....
the bass numbers was down too and weight to length was down....
They only found 3 perch in all the nets where as last year they found over 150 , Some of the trout had perch in there bellies that was from last year hatch that was 1 and 1/2 to 2 inch long and that is about the aveage growth for the perch at Jordanelle....
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I guess you can blame it on all the EYES in there[
]...You would think the DWR would take the 50 fish limit off to catch and release all perch for a couple of years..Go figure..To many mouths to feed not enough food.
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You got that right.....
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STILL NO WALLEYE? WITH ALL THAT STUFF FROM LAST YR AND STILL NO EYES? BUMMER!!!!!!!
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No eyes is the only reson that Jordanelle is as good as it is and I hope they never show up in there.....
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KEEP HOPING!!!! HOPE NEVER WORKS. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HOPE TO WIN A MILLION DALLORS? AND HOW MANY TIMES DID YA? I AM WAITING JUST LIKE THE OTHER EYE GUYS FOR ITS INNEVITABLE EYES WILL SWIM EVERYWHERE SOONER OR LATER. WE CAN WAIT. KEEP SMILING UNTIL THEN.
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I hope that some day the waters of Utah will have the food base to handle trout and bass and walleye...
And because it's unfortunate that the DWR will probably not ever to it, and I don't condone it, so it's too bad the bucket biologists don't put the food source in the lakes before the walleye or any other predators...
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Before this thread combusts into an inferno about bucket biology, eyes in lake X, and the other usual hot button topics, let me point out an observation I see in anglers fishing Jordanelle. Many times when they catch a chub, they will toss it on the bank, mad slash it, bash it, dissect it, or in many other ways kill them. This action may not be so bad in Strawberry, Panguitch, Piute, or Koosharem, where they are a nuisance to the trout fishery, but in Jordanelle, the chubs are a huge ASSET as a food source for the smallies and even the perch so many of us like to fish for. There is no way on earth that chubs will ever overpopulate that lake with the smallies and perch in there. I have caught a lot of chubs there and they are all Big for chubs (10-13 inches). Never young ones. These are older fish that will eventually die out. (they live up to 13 yrs.) The young ones get consumed each year. Once they are gone, the forage will be dependent mainly on the perch and the entire fishery will decline. So give those ugly things a little love the next time you reel one in at lake X and throw them back. Now back to the general discussion .
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Not being an "eye" fisherman, does Utah have a great eye fishery? Crossineyes are you wanting another place to fish for them or do you think Jordanelle has potential. With my very limited knowledge it seems that eye waters struggle or go through crash and burn cycles, with the latest being Yuba. I'd hate to see that happen to Jordanelle. Personally, I hope they never make it into Jordanelle, but you never know what waters the bucket biologists will screw up next.
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I agree, however unfortunately it is too late. Jordanelle has had eyes in it for several years now. There have been verifiable reports of them being caught already. Last year, my dad, who is great at fish identification and teaches biology, caught a small 8 or 9 inch walleye on the Rock Cliff arm. It was with a school of perch. Yes they are related to perch but even for an ameteur it would be difficult for them to confuse a perch with a walleye. This was definitely a walleye.
I remember back when Jordanelle was first filling, some bucket bios were busted near Jordanelle with live Walleye in their vehicle, presumably headed for Jordanelle waters too.
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Wish gizzard shad would show up in a lot of waters like they did in Powell. Sure would help Utah Lake, Starvation and on and on and on. We need good food for our fish.
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They would never survive. They die in cold water. They cannot tolerate any lakes that get below like 45 or 50 degrees I believe it is, let alone ones that ice over.
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I've caught several walleye up at Jordanelle, but they have never been big. They've always been in with the perch and never anything over 9 or 10 inches. This has been over the last two or three summers. So, they're in there. I haven't heard of anyone catching a really big one yet.
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[cool][#0000ff]Wrong. THREADFIN shad cannot tolerate cold, but GIZZARD shad live in ice cap waters in many places...like Willard Bay.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Only problem with putting gizzard shad in trout waters is that the shad live almost exclusively on zooplankton. That makes them direct competitors with trout, which also depend heavily on the tiny stuff, especially in the fry stage. Gizzard shad would be worse competitors for trout than chubs.[/#0000ff]
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Perch are part of the problem at Jordanelle -- NOT the solution.
Perch are a PREDATORY fish. How many predators can one lake have before it runs out of prey? Jordanelle has the following predators:
LMB
SMB
Perch
Walleye
BT
It has what forage fish? Chubs, and few rainbow trout.
The problem? Recruitment. The young-of-the-year perch and chubs are consumed far too quickly by predators. Someone already mentioned the size of the chubs. Why is it that no one ever sees small chubs?
The answer is NOT more forage fish. The lake has far too many predatory fish. Reducing harvest on perch will definately NOT help the situation. The best thing you could have happen to Jordanelle, would be the elimination of the perch all together. But, that won't happen.
10 years down the road, Jordanelle will be nothing more than a Deer Creek.
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Whoops! Don't I feel sheepish! My bad. THREADFIN shad. lol [blush]
Anyway, it'll never happen anyway. Too many hoops to jump through with federal regulations, competition with native species, June Sucker considerations, etc. [cool]
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I have to disagree with you on this one. Yes, perch are predatory, but their reproductive ability and smallish size also make them a critical forage as well. I fish Jordanelle as much as any other body of water, and perch are currently the #1 item that all of those predators are eating. The rainbows, perch, smallies, browns all regurgitate perch minnows year round. Yes, the chubs help the forage situation a lot, (I already brought this up) but they alone could never feed the smallies to the level they currently get and the smallies could never get to world class size without the perch.
I agree with you that Jordanelle will eventually be another Deer Creek, but it will be when the perch CRASH, just like they did at DC due to the low water and the walleyes.
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What you are forgetting, though, is that the smallmouth numbers in Jordanelle are way down...perch are also predatory; they are contributing greatly to the reduction of smallmouth because they are eating the smallmouth fry. I would totally disagree that the chubs could not feed the smallmouth and allow them to grow to trophy size...the chubs would and could do this if only the perch weren't around. The perch are also the reason you see very few small chubs in Jordanelle; they are eating the small chub fry. The perch are the biggest problem in the reservoir...true, they are the primary forage of smallmouth and brown trout right now, but the smallmouth fishing is going downhill because of their own predation by perch. Without the perch the browns and smallmouth would prey on chubs...Jordanelle would be a better fishery without the perch and with only chubs as a forage base.
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The problem is not to many predators......Its the lack of food or food fish.....
When some one catches a chub they kill it and when there was a die off of the perch nathan has been done to help with the food .....
Jordanelle is a world class fishery now but with out the proper management it will fall out like all the rest has in the past and here is a few that has.....
1. Yuba
2. Deer creek
3. Lake Powell
4. Starvation
5. Pineview
6. Willard
7. Utah lake
And that is just a few, Now some have been turned around like Willard, Lake Powell, how not by getting red of the predators like you say, To me that is just another cop out for lack of management by the DWR when all it takes is a food fish like perch shad or shiners ....
Every time a lake gets in truble the first thing that is said is TO MANY PREDATORs what a cop out.......
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[cool][#0000ff]I find it interesting that many of the lakes you list have "crashed" only after it developed a population of smallmouth. This is the same at Jordanelle. The smallies are eating themselves out of house and home.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I fished Deer Creek for many years before the smallies. There were walleyes in Deer Creek long before smallmouth, but only after the smallies got a good start did the perch decline. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There also used to be good largemouth fisheries in many of the lakes that smallmouth have now taken over. Yes, the smallies are fun, but it would be nice to still have some decent greenfish action. Instead, they are tough to find where they were once plentiful.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The other lakes you list have simply been the victims of Utah weather changes. They decline during drought years and come back in years of plenty of food and water. Don't blame DWR. For the most part they do a great job of "making do" with a lousy set of circumstances. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The answer is not to plant more chubs or perch, to sustain the smallies. Let them extablish their own level, like they do in lakes all over the rest of the country. If they can't survive, that is the law of nature. We don't need a smallmouth feeding program funded by a lot of other anglers who could care less about them.[/#0000ff]
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