Well we hit the ice at Yuba this morning...
Let me start from the start...
I left my house and all my lures but the ones I had on my poles..(great start)
We headed for the dam thinking it mite be fishing better then the other end...
The temp when we got there was 1* and the lake is capped, but the ice 10' out on the boat ramp is only 1 1/2" to 2" thick....
No wares just head for painted rocks on the road just north side of Yuba, I was not driving and for his sake I don't want to say his name but we was told by a DWR guy to watch the snow drifts..
While heading down the road I seen where everyone had turned out in the field but *** kepted going strait ahead to the snow drifts I ask if we or he shouldn't go out in the field...
He **** said no I need to get through the drifts and he gave it the gas...
To make a long story short 2 1/2 hr. later we dug out of the snow and was on our way again (in the field)...
A little later then we wanted to start fishing we drilled our first holes, the ice is at the painted rocks end of the lake 5" to 8" thick...
I got three perch two at 11" and one at 5" Brent got skunked, we headed home about 2:15.... Oh no I said his name!!!!
We did have a lot of fun and laughs and we both missed a few fish...
But I sure do miss the soft water...[
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How many people was on the ice? Was anybody else catching any?
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We heard of two pike that was lost at the hole and a few carp and a couple of other perch was all...There was about 15 people their...
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The perch hey-day at Yuba seems to be over... after just one season. About 40 people on the ice this afternoon. Best results was 2 guys that fished for 6 hours and had 8 perch. One young man (about 8 yrs) was lucky enough to pick up a 5 or 6 pound northern. Many went home skunked. Most perch caught are about 9 inches. Very few outside that age class.
The Painted Rocks boat ramp was almost closed at the end of the season for low water. The water came up 10 feet this fall. All I can say is I hope it is just that the fish haven't moved back up lake yet and they are down by the dam in deeper water. Time will tell.
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I like the ten fish or perch limit just in hopes the perch will last longer...
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Depends on what you mean by last longer... There will always be perch in Yuba. It is at what level do you want the population? Do you want to catch 10 fish/hr or do you want to catch 1 fish/hr or do you want to catch 1 fish/day?
It is no secret if you have been in this forum for more than a year you should have heard from those of us with a history at Yuba, it is a boom-bust lake. The reason is it can't produce enough forage for a large base of predatory warm water fish. And... given the reproductive capabilities of perch and walleye you can't crop them off fast enough with just angling pressure to keep them from eating themselves out of house and home.
The evidence for this years crash was on the table last year if you were paying any attention to the fish you were catching last year. Their condition was really pretty poor. The only meat was above the rib cage. There was no meat on the ribs of the fish. If you looked in the guts there was nothing in them... and if there was it was always another perch. Evidence that there was already nothing left to eat in the lake.
Lets look at a little Yuba history and the population dynamics of perch. If you have fished Yuba the last 50 years like I have then you will remember the the stretch form 1983 to 1986 which was the best in Yuba's perch history. The state record for perch was broken 3 times in one week during that run. Why was this? Well, the management of the lake at that time was NO LIMIT catch all you can. Anglers Inn was at the lake almost every weekend through the winters showing people how to catch perch and cook perch (and selling a lot of gear). The ice was covered with fishermen every weekend all winter... hundreds of them. But during the summers people had other waters to fish and the pressure would decline and the perch eventually out ran themselves with only the winter fishing pressure and crashed.
Now fast forward to today. The perch are being protected... first with an overly long closed season and then with the 10 fish limit... and what have we gotten? Less than one year of good fishing. Unless you call days like today good fishing. I spent a couple of hours on the ice today with 4 other fishermen... only 1 fish was pulled out. That's 1 fish for 10 hours of effort!
This management was supposed to make forage for walleye too, but it looks like the perch already beat them to lunch by cannibalizing themselves. That means a slower recovery for walleye too.
I sincerely hope that in a week or two the perch fishing would turn on and prove me a lier, but it's been in decline all summer too. I don't hold out much hope.
I'll just leave you with the wisdom of one very savvy old biologist I knew which I think applies to what is trying to be accomplished at Yuba, "You can't stock pile wildlife."
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[cool][#0000ff]AMEN brother. We sing the same song.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]In addition to your quote, let me add YOU CAN'T MANAGE THE UNMANAGEABLE.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]No matter how lofty the ideals of DWR, Yuba will take its own course...based upon water levels, spawning and recruitment. Restricting angler harvest on perch seems to accelerate the crash cycle rather than slowing it. It is a "Catch 22" situation. You need more adults to spawn enough food for the adults, but the more adults there are feeding on the young the faster they are sucked up in the spring. The walleye just have to get what they can while they can.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Most of the perch hounds observed the "summer doldrums"...when the perch were smaller and skinnier than the previous year. I was pleasantly surprised to get into some healthier fish in the fall but had to work hard to find and catch them. Nothing at all like the heydays of the past. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]One thing you did not mention was the carp situation. It has been my observation over the past two years that carp are taking a big toll on the perch fry too...and there seems to be an enormous population of the piscivorous cyprinids. While fishing from my tube I have witnessed "wolf packs" of yearling carp herding 1" perch fry into shallow corners and then slurping them up like tuna on 'chovies.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]And, many of us who fish specifically for perch...and walleyes...have experienced days when the carp catch vastly outnumbered the catch of our primary targets...on the same lures and/or baits we were fishing for the "good guys". Even the guys who troll or cast large lures for pike catch more than a few carp on them.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]What is your read on the influence of carp on the perch population.[/#0000ff]
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I'm glade you know so much about Yuba...
I was fishing Yuba in the late 50's and in the 70's the perch did not have a boom or bust...What hurt the fish was low water and when they put walleye in the lake...
Up until the 80's no one fished for perch on Yuba or Deer creek in the late 70's and 80's they put signs around Deer creek telling people to not throw perch on the bank...
And you are up in the night if you think fisherman don't over fish some lakes...
This year they pulled a lot of water out of Yuba + the carp will take their toll on the perch then you add the fisherman, and yes they could crash...And the perch have never eaten them out of house and home..
No lake in Utah has stunted perch, some have smaller perch then others but the lack of perch in Yuba is more from lack of water...
Why was the state record broke in the 80's so much??? That was when people found out how good they are, and started to think of them as a game fish and not just a trash fish...
At Jordanelle when they hold the water down till the spring like they have been and then raise the water as fast as they did last year it kills a lot of perch, the ones that are killed are three to five year old perch...A few year back this same thing happens at Pineview, Rockport, Jordanelle, and Echo that I know of and this may be going on at Yuba as well...
Yuba seems to have the crashes after a low water year or years like other lakes in Utah...
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Tube Dude... I really don't have a take on the carp situation. I don't doubt that they are slurping perch, even though I have always considered them more of bottom slurping vegetarian than an efficient predator. I know they are omnivorous. In the last year or two I have been catching them in Yuba on baits that I thought only a certified carnivore would eat. Obviously they will feed on what ever is available. I'm going to have to cut a few carp stomachs this spring and summer and see what they are taking.
Interesting... striper boils on Lake Powell for shad and carp boils on Yuba for perch!
The carp seem to be compatible with the Northerns in Yuba though. I have had reports of carp up to 2 pounds in a Northern's stomach.
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Like I say... I've been around Yuba for most of my mortal existence. I agree with you totally that people in the state of Utah thought perch were a trash fish until the middle 80's. And probably the biggest event to change the attitudes of Utah anglers was the push that Anglers Inn (Gean Snow) made at Yuba in the winters of "84 and '85. That event pretty much put perch on the Utah anglers radar.
Water levels will have some impact of the perch population, but Yuba is rarely drained with IPP controlling most of the shares of water. Perch are also spring time, broadcast spawners. Water levels are generally up in Yuba at spawning time and not drawn on until after the eggs have hatched. In fact, if you look at the premier perch crop of the '80s it should never have crashed because of water. IPP was holding water and Utah did not have a seasonal drought until '88.
There is also a water snafu with Yuba. The fluctuating water levels of this pond provide spawning habitat and bottom structure. When the lake is down the tamarisk grow on the shorelines. When the lake rises it floods them and makes spawning habitat and escape cover. If Yuba water levels stayed constant there would be no bottom structure in the lake at all. This lack of structure is probably where and when the carp predation of yellow perch is at its highest. The carp can just swim around and slurp up egg masses killing thousands of perch in a gulp.
I know you personally don't believe that perch can implode on themselves, but it has been documented in the eastern US where they have large perch waters and the fish are a major sport and economic asset. Just Google the web and you will find information like this which also matches very closely to what is happening at Yuba...
"Modeling results suggest that oscillations in young-of-the-year perch abundance were driven by the positive effect of adult perch reproduction and the negative effect of juvenile perch via cannibalism and competition. Young-of-the-year fish were abundant primarily in years when reproductively mature fish were in the lake suggesting that the cycles are driven predominantly by pulses of abundant reproductive adult perch. As these young perch grow to juveniles, they exclude the possibility of survival by younger cohorts through cannibalistic and competitive interactions. This exclusion occurs until they themselves become reproductively mature and the cycle then repeats"
Now... if you take that statement and look at Yuba's history. The lake runs in cycles of about 7 to 10 years between really great fishing years (given no big trauma like draining the lake completely). Hmmm, could we see a correlation to the above data? Not sure... but it is interesting.
As for fishing pressure being an impact on perch... it takes a lot of fisherman to inflict damage on a healthy perch population. Let's just computer model this out and see... An adult 9 inch perch is going to lay about 45,000 eggs a year. If 1% of those eggs survive a fisherman would have to catch 450 perch a year just to absorb what that single fish generated. If only 1/2% survived that is still 225 fish. Or even if only .25% survived you would have to catch 112 fish to stop population expansion.
Well, I or we could go on and on throwing figures around, but like Tube Dude said above... there are too many factors playing out at Yuba to really "manage" this water in the long term. You have to use it or lose it at Yuba.
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Another thing that I have always been
by is, where are the male Perch? Hundreds and hundreds of Perch are caught by fishermen. Has anyone caught a male Perch? Every single Perch I have ever caught through the ice at Yuba has had eggs. I've caught males at Deer Creek during the summer, but never seen a male at Yuba. Makes me wonder how many of those millions of eggs get fertilized.
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Here is food for thought, You have a lake like Yuba with Perch, Walleye, carp, and trout, and Pike add fisherman...
Now put in ice fishing, perch spawn in 42 to 52* water temp, the water is pulled down in the summer and the fry is eaten by all the other fish and birds, the bigger perch ie (spawners) are taken by the fisherman all winter now you have a crash...Just my thoughts...
Yuba has had problems with cover for the smaller fish for ever, that is why they had a structurer party a few years ago to put some in + perch has to lay or attach there eggs to brush or weeds to hang off the bottom or they will not hatch...Take away or have a bad spawn for a year or two cause of low water and ice fishing taking out more spawners and you have a crash as well...Lot of things can go wrong and do...
But big fish eat little fish take away big fish or the spawners and you have nathan...
Take away the spawn and the spawners and don't replant the fish????Yuba after the crash...
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There is lots of male perch in Yuba, in most fish the males are smaller then the females, look at perch that are 5" to 8" and you will find more males...
It is hard to find male perch that are over 9" most males are 8" or less...
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Well, last winter when we had to keep every fish, I cut up plenty of small Perch. Still never saw a male.
A few weeks ago me and my buddy were down there.. Caught our limit. 20 fish. We threw back three. Now, assuming all three of those fish were the ever so illusive male Perch, that still means we caught about seven females to every male. And, quite often, we don't throw any back. All of them are big females.
So, do males not eat, or should we just take it for granted that the male Perch are smart enough to not get caught?
OOUUCHH!!
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When I have caught male perch they seem to be all males in the school, but just before ice off they mix together...
If I remember right the males was in shallower water then female perch, but I do catch more perch with eggs in them then not..
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I've rarely caught male perch through the ice. My speculation is that the females feed much more actively while they are gravid just to feed all those eggs so they can spawn healthy roe.
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You old geezers don't remember much do ya......LOL Ice fishing was never popular until the mid- 80's. The reason????? All the darn lakes were closed the end of Nov with the exception of; FG, FL, DC, UL, and yes, Yuba. All other lakes had absolutely no fishing pressure whatsoever until late May.
Yuba in the early-mid 80's was a slaughter, then it died, 6-7 years ago it was a slaughter, then it died. It will come back again. The DWR and carp didn't have anything to do with it then and they still don't. Cliff has a point, the boom is always related to high water levels.
There is/was some back door cash being exchanged to keep the water level low. It seems a certain oil company needed the lake at a low level to conduct tests. I didn't hear to whom the $$ went too, but I assume the shareholders. Perhaps that ship has sailed with the bust of oil prices. Now stick that in your conspiracy pipe and smoke it......LOL
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Yes I do remember the days, some days we my buddy and me would be the only ones on Yuba ice fishing...
Then the only lakes that was open was lakes with out trout or so called trout lakes was closed....
Back then the opening day of fishing was the saturday closest to the first of June, shoulder to shoulder fishing on the opener...
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