Fishing Forum

Might head over Saturday thought about going to cottonwood and doing some perch and crappie hunting. How's fishin been?
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i havent been there for 2 months bass fishing but probably will go on sat also and will only fish the main lake area. ill be in my grey and teal bass boat.
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If you read my recent review, I had a hard time finding any perch, and crappie could just be a thing of the past. I talked to a fellow who put in over four hours on the "hump", for 20 perch. Trout fishing is quite good, and the fish are nice sized. PM me for more info on the trout. Happy Thanksgiving, Mike. Mike
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All the fish are in the narrows. Nice perch under the white ball on the south side of the power lines at 20 ft. Found some crappy about half way thur the narrows but they were only 3 inches long. The bass are out in front of the rec cove 20 ft watermelon carolina rig really slow.
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Thanks for the help. we are heading that way today looks like it might be a good day.
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Where was the 50deg temps they talked about? Fished under the pwr line and we landed 1 small trout. On the way home we drove into cottonwood and visited with a family that had done well on a mixed bag but mostly perch and a limit of trout. They had some nice grins on their faces! I was happy for them but ... well you know.[frown][][fishin]
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I went with some friends yesterday. Between the 3 of us caught 25 plus trout trolling.Nothing gigantic but it was a steady catch all day. We were marking big schools of crappie and perch but didn't bring any gear to try for them. Lots of people on the hump yesterday. If you were out there we were the ones in the red alumaweld. Just some advice for winter cj strike, if your running deeper than six feet your fishing to deep. The most action was on lures running aaround 3 feet deep. We usually catch are fish on the dropoffs that comes up to 6 to 8 feet deep.
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i was there in my bass boat and lets just say we didnt do well. found a few schools but nothing steady like years past. i barely found any fish on the hump so i wasnt there long.
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IPF,

Went yesterday 12-18-2012. Targeted perch. It was very slow compared to normal and had to use both poles and two jigs on each to get adequate bite to keep me there. I put 16 in the cooler. Although this report may seem depressing, I have noted that every once in awhile, you reel one in like in the photo to keep you coming back.

FR
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Wow, that's a dandy!! That perch must have thought he was in Cascade. Mike
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very nice fish. ive only tried once this winter and did horrible. seems like this year so far is nothing compared to previous years. i know the crappie are gone recent years but dont take the perch also. i will try again soon after the cold helps school them up a little more. water is still warmer than previous for this time of year.
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Wonderfull perch! Boy do I wish I could get there more often! Can you give any hints as to what was working for you the other day since they seem to be slow on the bite?
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Great perch! If the rest are even half that size, they would be worth working for.
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CP,

The others are more than half that size. I have been averaging just under 11" on the keepers and only one in five is not a keeper (normally I keep anything over 8" but at Strike, I alter the criteria to 9" and above).

IPF,

As to what I am using, I will say that it seems like different stuff works for a given time of year and spot on the lake with a complete change only 2 weeks apart. I will PM you with my latest secrets but I learn something new every time out and by no means think that I have it figured out. I will also PM anyone else that has contributed to this forum like you have.

I will say that use of a good fish finder seems important and keeping an open mind on where to go is necessary. I have done well all over the reservoir and been skunked (or nearly skunked) everywhere also.

BTW - the one in the photo was a hair under 13" with a 9" girth. One of the fish calculators said that would be about a 1.3 lb perch.

FR
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fishing near cotton wood i picked these up the one crappy is six and the big one 13.
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I remember the CJ Strike glory days. I moved here in 2002 from the midwest and Strike was marginal at best. Then all of a sudden around 2004(ish) the perch were EVERYWHERE! Then somewhere around 2005 You couldnt catch anything but 3" crappie. That is also about the same time I started seeing a drastic increase of people fishing at Strike, which is understandable. What I cannot understand is all of the people that were there filling bucket after bucket with tiny crappie and perch. That is what we in the midwest call terrible management. IDFG needs to get their heads out of where the sun dont shine and put some limits on these fish! CJ has massive potential to sustain an amazing amount of trophy size panfish but all IDFG cares about is the precious trout. Dont get me wrong I love to catch trout but there really needs to be some sort of a size and creel limit on the bluegill, crappie and perch in this state.
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It seems to me that when there is an overabundance of primarily 3" perch or crappie, the problem is too many fish, and therefore the more fish caught the better. I do agree with you that it makes no sense to keep such small fish for eating purposes, considering the work involved in fileting compared to quantity of fish!! Mike
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I do agree that an over abundance of fish will definatly stunt the growth of an entire lake. What I have seen done in other states is that the FG folks will go out and net fish to stock in other lakes. Seems like a better option than letting everybody take whatever they want. Its just ridiculous seeing bucket after bucket of bait sized crappie and perch getting slaughtered like that
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Fish & Game did pull some crappie out of CJ Strike to stock Lake Lowell for a couple of years. Idaho does not have a lot of large lakes, and most reservoirs eventually connect to the Snake or Columbia. So there's a huge number of hoops to jump through to introduce them to waters where they aren't already present. They're also difficult to manage for size in small waters. You end up with tons of stunted fish not worth catching.

Crappie and perch have a cyclical population. The females produce massive amounts of eggs. From what I've read in books and biology reports, the most important factor in the population is how many of the young survive their first and second year.

Both species are cannibalistic and will eat their own young. When there is a year class where lots of them survive to the size where they are relatively safe from fish predators, they depress the year class for the next few years because the adults eat most of the smaller fish. There was a huge year class in 2006, which you can read about here:

http://www.anglerguide.com/outdoors/news...fm?id=1642

The average life span of a crappie is around 6-7 years, so the leftover 2006 fish are starting to die of old age and Strike is on the downswing side of the population boom. There will probably be a few more years where the number of fish are smaller, but the average size is bigger because there is more food available for fewer fish.

I don't think there's much to worry about as far as people taking too many undersized crappie or perch. It's just part of their population cycle.
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I understand that crappie have a 7 year cycle. That doesnt change the fact that there needs to be some management. The lakes I grew up fishing in the midwest have the same cycle but there were always nice sized crappie no matter what part of the cycle the crappie were in because there were minimum size limits and creel limits in place.
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