Pineview Perch

[Jmaze]

I hit pineview this morning. Started in 35 feet of water. Picked up a few. Nothing of size. Went deeper for not. At 12 feet the fishing was furious. Fished a jig and ice fly combo. Caught 35 in the last hour. Tipping your lures with perch was the ticket. Then the snow came. Made for a slow drive home. Very warm all day, started at 32. Never went below 30. Lots of people in the narrows. We stayed away from the crowds.
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[wiperhunter2]

Thanks for the report Jmaze. From the sounds of it, they have moved into shallow water, I wonder if they are staging to spawn. Did you catch any over 9 inchers?
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[Jmaze]

Caught 4 at 9 inches. Kept 50 or so at 8 inches. There were more dinks then keepers for sure. All 4 of the 9 inchers were egg laden females, and the majority of the perch cleaned were females as well. Nothing over 9. I did see one 12-13 incher at the Dam. It was a magnificent perch that one guy was showing off. It was a one off fish though.
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[RockyRaab]

Just making an armchair observation, but I think the best thing that could happen to Pineview would be a thousand ice fisherman all keeping 50 egg-stuffed perch - per day.

When a lake gets that dinkified, the only cure is a massive removal, IMO. But I'm not a biologist.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF][cool] Your observation is valid. Not sure how long you have lived and fished in the area but there is a "history" on Pineview. In the "olden days" there were NO perch in that lake. Also no smallmouth. The big two were lots of nice largemouths and plenty of slab crappies. Some excellent bluegills too. And even some planted rainbows. But they got serious anchor worm problems by late summer every year in the warm water. DWR finally realized that not all lakes in Utah were prime trout waters.

"Somehow" perch made it into Pineview and they exploded. The lake was choked with swarms of the things and they stunted badly...even smaller than those we catch today.

Two things helped bring the perch numbers down a bit. One was the Doug Miller perch derbies. The second was the heavy planting of tiger muskies. Within a couple of years after the tigers moved in the numbers of perch noticeably declined and the sizes began to increase. Up until about 3 years ago it was common to have some footlongs in your ice hauls.

When some new nasty fish diseases began showing up in the areas from which Utah DWR was buying tiger muskie fry there was no longer a safe source for planting the predators. And the Utah propagation project for TMs has been plagued by a variety of problems. Net result: fewer muskies and more perch...and smaller perch.

With the sheer numbers of the stunting little perchies it is highly unlikely that even a greater harvest by anglers will not dent the population enough to make a significant difference. Of course it helps. But being able to plant a lot more tiger muskies in the lake would be a better year-round control system for the perch.
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[RockyRaab]

Been here in Ogden 26 years now, TD. Worked too much to fish a lot for most of that; didn't own a boat, either. So I didn't fish PV that much.

Now living the life of the seven-day weekend, my two primary lakes are PV and Willard, but I do go to Mantua a bit. I don't get around nearly as much as you do because I'm trying to learn those few from scratch, essentially.
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[Fishrmn]

Is there a perch fishery in Utah that WOULD NOT benefit from 1,000 fishermen keeping 50 egg stuffed perch per day?
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[wiperhunter2]

I can think of two, Willard and Bear lake, maybe Yuba.
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[Fishrmn]

This year for Yuba. And at least until the Pike population crashes. Too many predators. Probably won't make a bit of difference in Bear Lake or Willard. For whatever reasons neither of them have ever had many perch. Probably never will either. Everywhere else, if there are perch, there are too many perch for them to grow very big.
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[Kent]

In addition to the two mentioned, I would add Utah Lake to the list.
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[Fishrmn]

Again, why would it matter. If you released every perch that you caught at Utah Lake it wouldn't cause a population explosion of perch. It's the wrong habitat. They've had decades to reproduce, and they struggle to even survive. Everywhere that they have good habitat they overpopulate and grow millions of 6 or 7 inch perch.
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[Kent]

[quote Fishrmn]

Again, why would it matter. If you released every perch that you caught at Utah Lake it wouldn't cause a population explosion of perch. It's the wrong habitat. They've had decades to reproduce, and they struggle to even survive.

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Couldn't agree more. The quote was, "Is there a perch fishery in Utah that WOULD NOT benefit from 1,000 fishermen keeping 50 egg stuffed perch per day?"

And my answer was that keeping a large number (if it were possible) of perch from Utah Lake would not benefit the fishery, because they don't reproduce in large numbers there anyway.
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[Fishrmn]

Catching all of the perch out of Utah Lake wouldn't help the perch fishery at Utah Lake, but it might benefit the overall fishery.
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[Joe_Dizzy]

How's the baitfish population at PV?

Key to good perch fishing back east are shiners... either Emerald Shiners (big lakes, open water) or Golden Shiners (shallow, weedy lakes). Perch eat plankton and macro's for a while, but once they get to be 9-10 inches they prefer seafood (and that would include YOY perch as well).

Good shiner populations always seemed to equate to good perch populations back east. Some of the lakes I fished regularly were less than 400 acres and no deeper than 10 feet... and they still produced plenty of jumbo's (12+ inches).
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