07-30-2004, 06:37 PM
Actually, theres more to the story than this.
I discussed this with the man responsible for this decision in some depth this spring.
Craig schaugard is the biologist who is in charge of mantua, and is directly responsible for making these types of decisions.
The big trout die off last summer that killed hundreds of trout when the water temp got over 80 degrees and there wasnt enough deep water that was cool enough to support that many trout played a big factor in his decision as well.
Basically mantua has been tried as a trout fishery many times, this is just the latest. It has never worked before, and wont work the next time they try either.
The perch will do like they do with every lake in this state, overpopulate, stunt, and in mantua, they are expected by the DWR to destroy the bluegill population. How? Craig told me that perch are incredible nest robbers. They will ravage bluegill nests in huge numbers until the gills cant protect thier nest anymore and the eggs are gone.
As the gills numbers are reduced, the perch may crash, leaving mantuas already overpopulated and stunted bass without a food base, destroying the bass fishery. Wich is already destroyed by the way.
Now, are the perch to blame? No. Mantua had a perfectly balanced ecosystem prior to the poisoning of the chubs, and planting of the trout this last time around. The average LMB size in there was 2 lbs, with 4 and 6 LBers beign caught regularly.
After the rotenone, the lake was void of fish, and the northern utah B.A.S.S. put the few largemouth they saved back into the lake. Well, the LMB then spawned, and due to the lack of any predators, they all survived, repeated the cycle, and what you have today is a lake full of LMB that are stunted and overpopulated badly.
I am not one to bash the DWR. Any of you who know me, know I am one of thier biggest supporters.
They have realized thier mistake, and are now in fix it mode. It likley will never return to the great bass fishery it was due to the ignorance of the individuals who illegally put the perch in there.
But it would have never had many of these problems had the DWR not tried to turn it into a trout fishery again.
Hopefully this is the last attempt to turn mantua into a trout fishery.
I believe that if the DWR will manage it as a bass fishery, and manage it effectivley, it can be returned to one of the states best LMB lakes.
Its unfortunate that mantua has had to endure this over the past several years.
But, it is good to see that the stupid artificial only regs will be lifted, and people will be encouraged to help in the fixing of this fishery.
Hopefully every perch that gets caught out of there will be killed, hopefully the DWR will put a slot limit in place to protect the bigger bass, and encourage the harvest of the smaller overpopulated ones, Hopefully the bluegills will survive the perch and stablilze as the food base in the lake, and the good lord willing, they will stop trying to turn it into a trout fishery. After four attempts that I know of, somebody down there ought to get the idea that it aint gonna work.
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I discussed this with the man responsible for this decision in some depth this spring.
Craig schaugard is the biologist who is in charge of mantua, and is directly responsible for making these types of decisions.
The big trout die off last summer that killed hundreds of trout when the water temp got over 80 degrees and there wasnt enough deep water that was cool enough to support that many trout played a big factor in his decision as well.
Basically mantua has been tried as a trout fishery many times, this is just the latest. It has never worked before, and wont work the next time they try either.
The perch will do like they do with every lake in this state, overpopulate, stunt, and in mantua, they are expected by the DWR to destroy the bluegill population. How? Craig told me that perch are incredible nest robbers. They will ravage bluegill nests in huge numbers until the gills cant protect thier nest anymore and the eggs are gone.
As the gills numbers are reduced, the perch may crash, leaving mantuas already overpopulated and stunted bass without a food base, destroying the bass fishery. Wich is already destroyed by the way.
Now, are the perch to blame? No. Mantua had a perfectly balanced ecosystem prior to the poisoning of the chubs, and planting of the trout this last time around. The average LMB size in there was 2 lbs, with 4 and 6 LBers beign caught regularly.
After the rotenone, the lake was void of fish, and the northern utah B.A.S.S. put the few largemouth they saved back into the lake. Well, the LMB then spawned, and due to the lack of any predators, they all survived, repeated the cycle, and what you have today is a lake full of LMB that are stunted and overpopulated badly.
I am not one to bash the DWR. Any of you who know me, know I am one of thier biggest supporters.
They have realized thier mistake, and are now in fix it mode. It likley will never return to the great bass fishery it was due to the ignorance of the individuals who illegally put the perch in there.
But it would have never had many of these problems had the DWR not tried to turn it into a trout fishery again.
Hopefully this is the last attempt to turn mantua into a trout fishery.
I believe that if the DWR will manage it as a bass fishery, and manage it effectivley, it can be returned to one of the states best LMB lakes.
Its unfortunate that mantua has had to endure this over the past several years.
But, it is good to see that the stupid artificial only regs will be lifted, and people will be encouraged to help in the fixing of this fishery.
Hopefully every perch that gets caught out of there will be killed, hopefully the DWR will put a slot limit in place to protect the bigger bass, and encourage the harvest of the smaller overpopulated ones, Hopefully the bluegills will survive the perch and stablilze as the food base in the lake, and the good lord willing, they will stop trying to turn it into a trout fishery. After four attempts that I know of, somebody down there ought to get the idea that it aint gonna work.
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