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Channel catfish stocked into Mantua Reservoir
#1
"Approximately 319 brood channel catfish were stocked into the reservoir last week to kick start a new channel catfish fishery in the reservoir. It is hoped the channel catfish will improve fishing opportunities to fish from shore and compliment the already great bass, bluegill, perch and trout fishery."
Some fish were in the 8 pound category.
That is all I know, so please don't ask me any questions. Thought you might like to know about it though.
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#2
Good news. Does Utah raise their own catfish these days or still haul them in from out of state? Scott, if you don't know perhaps someone else does.
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#3
Wow 8lbers wish I knew that. was there today but didn't take any catfish gear just went to play with the pan fish. caught a mess of 6" perch. This is great will have somewhere else to go next year. The bird refuge is getting old.
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#4
Thanks Scott,
That will be interesting to see how they do... Later J
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#5
Make it a warm water fishery. Good news as I see it. Cold water species just don’t make it in water that gets very warm in the summer.
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#6
[quote kentofnsl]Good news. Does Utah raise their own catfish these days or still haul them in from out of state? Scott, if you don't know perhaps someone else does.[/quote]

[#0000FF]I suspected that Chris Penne would be a good source of additional info on the Mantua cat program and sent him an email. This is his reply. Thanks Chris.[/#0000FF]
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Yes, I've got a little additional info regarding the channel catfish in Mantua. Approximate numbers of the big channel catfish that went in are as Scott stated, which was about 319 fish averaging 8 lbs and about 30" a piece. We've had plans to add channel cats to Mantua for a few years now and the reservoir got a stocking of channel catfish fry in July and then got a stocking of about 20,000 3" fingerlings just yesterday. The plan all along has been to stock fingerlings to get the population going. Ultimately though, we didn't want to just stock the fingerlings and tell people they might be able to catch some catfish in three or four years when the fish have grown - we wanted people to be able to fish for catfish now. Anyway, we ended up getting lucky as there were a number of fish down at our Wahweap fish hatchery where we have our small catfish program that had recently grown too big for their spawning containers. As you may know, catfish are cavity spawners and it is common to use the old metal milk containers for love nests when they are in the hatchery setting. Since those fish had grown too big to conveniently spawn, we picked them up for our Mantua channel catfish introduction with the intent of kick starting the fishing and hopefully getting some spawning going in the reservoir next year.

Regarding Utah's channel catfish program - we have a pretty small program and only produce 3" fingerlings to stock in several waters, but we don't have the capacity to meet our statewide needs, especially when it comes to the thousands of pounds of channel catfish we stock in the community fisheries in the summer months. We are still hoping we will have that capacity one day, but we've got other warm water programs that we are currently trying to grow such as our programs for producing walleye, tiger muskie and wiper.

The main intent with the channel catfish is to improve opportunities for shore fishing at Mantua and diversify the fish community. They should fit in pretty well with the existing bass, bluegill, perch community as they typically compliment bass and bluegill fisheries without having an noticeable negative effects on the populations on either fish. I'm hoping we only have to supplement the population for the first three or four years and then it will be self sustaining. I think Mantua should enough spawning areas with the rocks along the west dike and the flooded timber to the north. In Willard, there was a study done years ago and the catfish there prefer to spawn where the dike meets the bottom of the reservoir. Hopefully we'll see the same at Mantua.


Chris
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#7
Thanks for getting that information for us.

I don't understand all the fine points of setting up a fishery and stocking it. Not being critical, but just wondering: why do they plant a bunch of snack-size fish in a lake that's full of predators?
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#8
i think it's a numbers game, they can raise a bunch of small fish for cheap, but if they try to get them bigger, it's very expensive to do and they don't have enough room... So they plant 20,000 hoping for 5,000 or some number that survive... and then do it again the next year or so and eventually they get a self sustaining population... I guess... I think money is the reason why they don't raise them to a larger size before they plant them... plus I'm sure the fish do better if they learn how to feed themselves early verses being dumb planters at a larger size... I think we are probably more happy with the fish the way they are doing it, but we don't get much immediate gradification.... However, those 30" fish they just planted, will change that, maybe I need to head over that way??? Later J
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#9
Your thoughts on the stocking sound right to me. It takes hundreds of thousands of fry to start with in order to have one survive to be a 30''er I guess. Time, space, money--sounds about right.

Speaking of 30"ers, if those are eight-pound fish they would be more likely to measure 27-28 inches. If they are 30 inches they should weigh more like 11-12 pounds, but I'd sure be happy to catch any of those. I'm seriously thinking of heading to Mantua one day myself. Let me know if you decide to go and we can try to meet up if you'd like. What do you suppose those big cats would like to eat?
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#10
27 to 28"ers is where I would put them catchinon.
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#11
"Speaking of 30"ers, if those are eight-pound fish they would be more likely to measure 27-28 inches. If they are 30 inches they should weigh more like 11-12 pounds,"

[#0000FF]Don't compare hatchery fish from another water to naturally feeding catfish from Utah Lake. There can be wide variations in length to weight ratios for fish from different habitats...or even from the same waters at different times of the year or under different cycles of food availability.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Also, I suspect that the weights were guesstimates and not actually weighed fish.[/#0000FF]
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