Fishing Forum

So took off for the narrows at about 5 this morning hoping to catch me a few nice eyes and maybe a few of whatever else wanted to play. I started fishing about 630 or so at the power plant. I fished for about an hour or so and was only able to catch 2 rainbow that were about a pound or so. I had heard the morning had been pretty good for larger fish but I think the storms coming in might have go the best of me at the power plant this morning.
I decided to move to a new stretch that I usually catch some pretty nice brown with a few smallies and one hole with alot of walleye. This is the part of my story when my good and bad both happened. For the first few holes I managed to pull about 10 to 15 medium sized browns with the largest being about 4 pounds. I had never caught smallies out of these first holes but I also caught about 5 of them on the way to my main hole. So as I get to my main hole the water looked as good as normal but the difference was this time that every cast I got a fish for the next 2 hours. This is the good and bad. This hole I have managed to pull many large walleye and many good eater size walleye from for years but today I have decided that smallies maybe getting the better of the walleye. I only caught 1 walleye and 1 medium sized rainbow in all of my catches. The other about 65 or 70 fish I caught were smallies. The walleye looked like it was all but starved and all the smallies were almost a clone of each other only being about 6 to 7 inches long. I have started to really notice here in the last 2 years that Im catching more and more smallies out of my favorite walleye holes and the walleye are getting smaller and smaller and the smallies arent getting much bigger just more of them. So with all the talk of walleye being a threat in Ririe Im thinking maybe the smallies are the threat for walleye in Onieda. Anyone else notice this happening? My pictures are kinda bad only had my cell phone but I wear a size 12 so you can kinda judge the size.
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good looking brown not as many of those big ones around as there use to be. as for the walleye they are still around but i think there getting more presure than they use to. I would guesse that the smallies and eyes compete over the same food source and the smallies are definatly more agressive.

I caught a couple eyes over 25 inches up the narrows this spring and a couple smallies that were close to 4 lb. so the big ones are still around. I dont normaly target them up there in the summer so i dont catch them regularly enough to say. I love to catch the smallies and would hate to see them go not many fish seem to thrive in that muddy mess down river but the smallies are doing great.
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I caught a fair number of good fat 12-16" smallies out of The Narrows earlier in the year, so I know there are some good ones in there. I still haven't caught any walleye in the river, just the res, but I've been after the smallmouth so I'm not surprised.
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I noticed the same thing earlier this spring bud. I really get the feeling (in fact I am almost positive of it) that the smallies are starting to take over and out compete the walleyes in the entire bear river system. Almost any system that has smallies that do reasonably well, they tend to overpopulate themselves, and force out their neighboring species - then stunt (bear in mind that we are in the very early stages of this process, so we are still seeing a few nice fish in both species, but I don't expect it to last much longer). I even caught smallmouth at the narrows powerplant as well as downriver several miles that were puking up 3 inch walleye minnows. So, being that smallies are nearly as good eating as walleyes, and walleyes make much nicer photographs, I have continued realeasing nearly every walleye I catch, and declared dinner on all keeper smallmouth.

But I would say that you are definately on to something here. Oh and by the way, next time you make another one of these trips, I wanna go with ya [laugh]. That sounds like fun!
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i have also started keeping alot of the smallies, a few years ago i didnt keep any because i wanted to see them catch on and they were rare to catch but now they are very plentyful. i have also noticed that the smallies are showing up about the time that the eyes are getting done spawning and begining to hatch.
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That's too bad the walleye were not biting, but I am very impressed that you caught 10-15 Browns, I am glad to hear there are still some in there!! Good work keep the smallies, they are way overpopulated in the River!![fishin]
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I actually seen some larger browns following but I was walking the river and now paying attention until I would see them at my feet. Seemed that the trout were all very healthy and I seen alot of fish rising all day. If I could have kept bye lures out of the smallies I could have probably had some very nice fish but man it got annoying having my lure hit the water and immediately having a smallie on.
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Maybe try a larger bait, not sure if that would work that smallies are pretty agressive, probably hit anything you throw at them huh? Ever try any large rapalas?[fishin]

MM
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