Lost Lake 7-15-20

[Joe_Dizzy]

I agree two or three lakes in an area like mirror lake would be good for a trophy fishery.  Tough with the food up there though.  I found this on the DNR web site meant to inform us why they do what they do.  https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-...cking.html

Good point on the food availability, but same could be said for most man-made alpine lake fisheries in the Rockies. I read a story on Finnis Mitchell and how he personally stocked hundreds of lakes in the Wind River Range via horseback. Many of those lakes were devoid of fish life and are still self-sustaining populations today dating back to Finnis’ horse & milk jug stocking efforts.
 
Biologists say that the trade-off of introducing fish to these remote, sterile lakes is that we are leapfrogging the natural aging of these lakes. Most that are stocked on a regular basis are quite fertile now and well into the aging process. Of course, this is all 100,000-year talk as the Rockies naturally age, wear, and these lakes become lower and naturally more fertile. Instead of being oligotrophic lakes transitioning to mesotrophic lakes, they will already be eutrophic lakes or swamps transitioning to nothing.
 
You can see this in the roadside lakes in the Uintas. Given their elevation they should be relatively infertile, but since they get over-stuffed with so many adult fish the basins and shoals are already very silty and weedy. Midges (mud burrowers) which are supposed to be relatively scare at elevation are very common in the Uintas. Guess that’s a long way of saying that these lakes are more fertile than they should be already and probably have the potential to produce quality fish if managed correctly. Unfortunately, we will never know under the current plan to annually stuff every accessible lake with thousands of adult rainbows and over-breeding brookies.