03-17-2004, 07:31 AM
I fish Minersville about 30 or 40 times a year on average, and I can tell ya without a doubt that the reason the fish get skinny sometimes in there is because EVERY ounce of available food gets eaten by chubs. The trout eat tons of the young chubs. They eat more of them than the smallmouth bass, but they cannot eat enough of them to keep them in check. And until the trout get big enough to eat chubs, and figure out how to eat chubs, they struggle just to survive the warm water and the lack of smaller, easier to eat foods. The chubs like the warmer water, and because of their numbers they eat the trout out of house and home.
I have noticed that the damsel flies have been gone for about 5 years. About 2 years before the draining for the repairs on the dam. Before that you would have six or seven of the darn things hanging on to your fishing pole. But not since the chubs really came on strong again. I saw two or three damsel flies last year total. If the chubs don't get really thick again for a couple of years there will be some toads in there again.
And without special regulatons like Minersville has, Otter Creek Isn't going to be any better than it already is. A trout only lives 5 or 6 years on average if it isn't caught and kept, and is only going to grow so big no matter how long you go without rotenone.
I agree that the regs need to be tweaked quite often, but every time the DWR changes things people are up in arms about how that affects their favorite fishing hole or their favorite way of fishing. The change to a 22 inch minimun lenght on trout, on waters with special regulations, had to be made statewide to make the excuse that "I thought that you could keep one over 20 inches here" wouldn't be every idiots way out of a ticket at Strawberry.
As for not catching a single chub at Otter Creek, so what? I don't catch chubs at Minersville either. They are still a big problem there though. If you aren't using the right stuff to catch them you never will. They still out eat any other fish around. They still out reproduce any other fish around, and unless you have an imbalance of predatory fish in a body of water you won't be able to keep chubs in check. Walleyes, smallmouth bass, and brown trout have eaten all of the young of the year chubs in Starvation for years, but they haven't eliminated them yet. Only when the adult chubs die of old age (soon) will there be a shortage of forage in there. The macinaw in Fish Lake didn't eat all of the chubs in there either. It wasn't until some fool who thought that he knew more than the biologists put perch in there that there was a problem there. And they are NEVER going to run out of chubs at Strawberry with only Bear Lake cutthroats in there. If some joker puts another predator in there via bucket planting, then there might be a problem.
And as soon as the DWR hints that they're going to reduce the number of deer tags in the state or shorten the season in a couple of regions to reduce the harvest or go to 25 regions, about half of the deer hunters in this state scream bloody murder that they can't go out with their family on a traditional deer hunt. They scream that they have to have 10 or 12 tags in camp even if only 4 or 5 guys are actually going to hunt.
No, I'd have to say that the DWR does a pretty good job of trying to deal with 500,000 different opinions on how every water should be managed, and 200,000 differences of opinion on how to make the deer hunting the same as it was 25 years ago. Unless somebody comes up with a time machine, that ain't happenin' either.
My two cents.
Fishrmn
I have noticed that the damsel flies have been gone for about 5 years. About 2 years before the draining for the repairs on the dam. Before that you would have six or seven of the darn things hanging on to your fishing pole. But not since the chubs really came on strong again. I saw two or three damsel flies last year total. If the chubs don't get really thick again for a couple of years there will be some toads in there again.
And without special regulatons like Minersville has, Otter Creek Isn't going to be any better than it already is. A trout only lives 5 or 6 years on average if it isn't caught and kept, and is only going to grow so big no matter how long you go without rotenone.
I agree that the regs need to be tweaked quite often, but every time the DWR changes things people are up in arms about how that affects their favorite fishing hole or their favorite way of fishing. The change to a 22 inch minimun lenght on trout, on waters with special regulations, had to be made statewide to make the excuse that "I thought that you could keep one over 20 inches here" wouldn't be every idiots way out of a ticket at Strawberry.
As for not catching a single chub at Otter Creek, so what? I don't catch chubs at Minersville either. They are still a big problem there though. If you aren't using the right stuff to catch them you never will. They still out eat any other fish around. They still out reproduce any other fish around, and unless you have an imbalance of predatory fish in a body of water you won't be able to keep chubs in check. Walleyes, smallmouth bass, and brown trout have eaten all of the young of the year chubs in Starvation for years, but they haven't eliminated them yet. Only when the adult chubs die of old age (soon) will there be a shortage of forage in there. The macinaw in Fish Lake didn't eat all of the chubs in there either. It wasn't until some fool who thought that he knew more than the biologists put perch in there that there was a problem there. And they are NEVER going to run out of chubs at Strawberry with only Bear Lake cutthroats in there. If some joker puts another predator in there via bucket planting, then there might be a problem.
And as soon as the DWR hints that they're going to reduce the number of deer tags in the state or shorten the season in a couple of regions to reduce the harvest or go to 25 regions, about half of the deer hunters in this state scream bloody murder that they can't go out with their family on a traditional deer hunt. They scream that they have to have 10 or 12 tags in camp even if only 4 or 5 guys are actually going to hunt.
No, I'd have to say that the DWR does a pretty good job of trying to deal with 500,000 different opinions on how every water should be managed, and 200,000 differences of opinion on how to make the deer hunting the same as it was 25 years ago. Unless somebody comes up with a time machine, that ain't happenin' either.
My two cents.
Fishrmn