Just thought I'd make mention that at least some of the docks are in the water at Cascade and that now would be a good time to practice population control on the perch. Fishing was good on Saturday and due to the windy and rainy conditions, not many folks were on the water. I only saw one other boat in 5 hours and that was as I was leaving.
The perch are healthy, numerous, and feisty. Also caught, SMB, Crappie, and NPMinnows. Go get em boys and girls.
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Nice looking haul! Did you catch all sizes of perch? How big did the perch get?
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Nice haul, I did not know Cascade had crappie, are they there in any numbers? How long are they getting there? Looks like you are going to have some good eats for a number of meals.
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hooknhunter
where did you put in nice haul .
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Perch ranged from 7 up to about 13 inches. Only caught 5 or six that were less than 9ish. I'd say the average was pretty close to 11 inches or so. Very nice for cleaning and nice thick fillets when done.
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The crappie are hard to find. I have had 30 + fish days for Crappie there, but only if I target crappie exclusively and even then it is rare. Most days I can only find a few. I happened to catch 2 just as plain old luck. Both that I caught were over 11 inches, but I have caught some that I'd consider to be very nice for almost anywhere (see picture from a few years ago).
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I put in on the north end.
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Actually, just a note to all. I kept both of those 11+ inch Crappie and now I'm feeling very guilty about it. Both were females and chuck full of beautiful eggs. I won't be keeping any more until after the spawn is over (assuming I catch more). I personally would really like to see the Crappie population in Cascade grow and spread around a bit so that we had a decent mix of Crappie and Perch. For that reason, I won't be keeping any more until after the spawn and I'd encourage others to do the same.
I personally would like to see fish and game stock more Crappie in there and help the population out a bit. Perhaps this fishery could be a bit more diverse than it already is. [
] Since they are already in there, I see no reason why giving them a little help would be bad. For what it's worth, I've only caught Black Crappie there. Never a White. I wonder why that would be. Habitat? Or perhaps whenever they were released, only Blacks were planted? I check the stocking report as far back as you can get from F&G website and I don't see any record of ever stocking them. Perhaps it is from before 1968? Perhaps they came from a bucket biologist?
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That is a nice crappie, glad to know there are other fish to target there. Have you always caught them there or do their numbers cycle a lot?
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I caught my first one about two or three years ago. I've been catching there every spring since. I've heard "myths" and "legends" of them in there for years, but never talked to anyone who had actually "caught one themselves". I was beginning to believe the things I'd heard were not true until.......... Oops. What's this funny looking thing?
I'd sure like to see a more healthy population of them in there. I'm not sure what the limiters are. Habitat? Predation? Critical mass?
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I found lots of perch around sugarloaf island, the north side had number and the south side had size. We were catching 12 perch on senkos. The drive up to cascade sucks, especially during camping season. We rented a condo for a very reasonable price and launched out of the golf course ramp. Just a warning, every sticker on the truck and trailer license plates were cleaned by the local law enforcement daily. The biomass at CJ is better, just my two cents. And did I mention the road up the canyon sucks.
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[quote dtayboyz]The drive up to cascade sucks, especially during camping season.... The biomass at CJ is better, just my two cents. And did I mention the road up the canyon sucks.[/quote]
Those are very valid and true statements.
I hope most people keep going to CJ. That way I won't find 50 boats sitting right on top of some of my favorite spots.
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To bad it wasn't closer, it's not a day trip kinda place. I was kinda overwhelmed the first day with all the structure in the place, by the forth day I kinda figured some stuff out. We were there around the 4th of July and at lunch everyday the power squad would make the north end unfishable. If much rather fish owhyee.
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According to the DWR, here in Utah, crappie are pretty hard to remove from any body of water once they are established but without a doubt, habitat has got to be a big factor for their numbers to really grow. If there is plenty of cover for the young of the year to survive until they get big enough to not but eaten, by other predators, they would do well but with the number of perch in Cascade, crappie are likely one of the prey they feed on when they are small. When it comes to any fish, you can catch more of them by targeting the areas they hang out the most, using known methods that work for them. Crappie seems most easily caught in the Spring, up until they spawn, then they are harder to catch. Just like perch, they cycle and in good years when their numbers are high, you can catch limits of nice big slams, as long as they don't stunt, then their numbers drop and so does the easy catching. We caught two limits of 12 to 13" crappie, in an hour and a half, earlier this month, we went back 10 days later and caught zero but that was more the result of the weather than the fish not being there. It pretty cool that you have a lake like Cascade, there in Idaho, that has both big perch and crappie.
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[quote dtayboyz]I found lots of perch around sugarloaf island, the north side had number and the south side had size. We were catching 12 perch on senkos. The drive up to cascade sucks, especially during camping season. We rented a condo for a very reasonable price and launched out of the golf course ramp. Just a warning, every sticker on the truck and trailer license plates were cleaned by the local law enforcement daily. The biomass at CJ is better, just my two cents. And did I mention the road up the canyon sucks.[/quote]
Even from Nampa, where my son lives, it seems like a long drive but its got to a killer drive from your place Dale. Sugarloaf island? Is that near Augar Falls[:/]?
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Soon as we get some water in the river, we'll go check out auger falls again. I'm prefishing Milner now, wanna go?
7 lb largemouths caught at CJ last Sunday pictures on Facebook/Idaho bass fishing
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They are definitely a mystery to me. Had one day 3-4 years ago near crown point when my dad and I caught around 60 of them. Every cast for about 45 mins. All about 8 inch fish, and all went back in to reproduce. I thought we may see a boom in the population after that, but haven't touched a crappie up there since. I agree, think it would be a really cool thing to have a decent crappie population in there.
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Don't they have a tournament there this coming weekend? The wife and I plan on spending a few days there the first part of June, hoping to find a few perch and possibly coax a kokanee into biting. Thanks for the post and pictures.
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[quote dtayboyz]Soon as we get some water in the river, we'll go check out auger falls again. I'm prefishing Milner now, wanna go?[/quote]
Sorry Dale, casting for more than a hour or so causes my back to act up, so that why I usually avoid it.
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[quote dtayboyz]
Just a warning, every sticker on the truck and trailer license plates were cleaned by the local law enforcement daily.
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Dale, sorry but I don't understand what you are saying with this statement. Please explain further.
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