06-12-2005, 08:13 PM
[cool][#0000ff]Right you are. Utah Lake was never much more than it is as you see it...minus a lot of development around the edges. It was never a forested, deep alpine lake, as some would have you believe. It was a shallow lake in a desert environment.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There may be a layer of sediment over some of the deeper pockets in the lake, but the layer of hardened volcanic mud, limestone and other materials that form the bottom are never very far from the surface of the mud.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Cutthroat trout, suckers, chubs and perhaps a few other species lived in peaceful coexistence until the pioneers arrived. They harvested all of the native species for food and eventually depopulated the lake of the cutts and a large percentage of the suckers.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]In the early 1900's carp were introduced as a food source, but were never heavily harvested. We live with that mistake. They have wiped out natural vegetation in the lake and ruined spawning habitat for all species except themselves.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]DWR and bucket biologists have combined to try just about every other species of both predator and forage fish in the USA. Most have been unsuccessful. The predators that have survived have made it a tough neighborhood for the native species that are still left.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I continue to shake my head in wonder as I watch the fisheries departments of our western states try to rebuild populations of endangered native species. Sure, I hate to see any species go extinct. But, once a river system or lake has been irretrievably altered, by man's intervention, and the conditions have been changed to exclude the native species, I think it is both foolish and wasteful to keep "throwing good money after bad" by spending sportsmen's dollars on species that will never make it in the long run. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]What's more, fisheries departments are killing off the sports species they once introduced and protected, in ill-advised attempts to correct the uncorrectable. Look at what they did to the trout below Lake Powell. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]And, down in Arizona, they took one of my favorite tubing lakes (Horseshoe Reservoir, near Phoenix) and flushed it dry, to eradicate the once great populations of bass, crappie, catfish and sunfish. Now it is being maintained as a nursery for Colorado Pikeminnow (squawfish) and some native suckers and chubs. Those fish are no good to fish for and you are arrested if you keep any of them. There is no limit on sports fish taken from the reservoir, in an effort to keep them out.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]DON'T GET ME STARTED.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]There may be a layer of sediment over some of the deeper pockets in the lake, but the layer of hardened volcanic mud, limestone and other materials that form the bottom are never very far from the surface of the mud.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]Cutthroat trout, suckers, chubs and perhaps a few other species lived in peaceful coexistence until the pioneers arrived. They harvested all of the native species for food and eventually depopulated the lake of the cutts and a large percentage of the suckers.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]In the early 1900's carp were introduced as a food source, but were never heavily harvested. We live with that mistake. They have wiped out natural vegetation in the lake and ruined spawning habitat for all species except themselves.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]DWR and bucket biologists have combined to try just about every other species of both predator and forage fish in the USA. Most have been unsuccessful. The predators that have survived have made it a tough neighborhood for the native species that are still left.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]I continue to shake my head in wonder as I watch the fisheries departments of our western states try to rebuild populations of endangered native species. Sure, I hate to see any species go extinct. But, once a river system or lake has been irretrievably altered, by man's intervention, and the conditions have been changed to exclude the native species, I think it is both foolish and wasteful to keep "throwing good money after bad" by spending sportsmen's dollars on species that will never make it in the long run. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]What's more, fisheries departments are killing off the sports species they once introduced and protected, in ill-advised attempts to correct the uncorrectable. Look at what they did to the trout below Lake Powell. [/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]And, down in Arizona, they took one of my favorite tubing lakes (Horseshoe Reservoir, near Phoenix) and flushed it dry, to eradicate the once great populations of bass, crappie, catfish and sunfish. Now it is being maintained as a nursery for Colorado Pikeminnow (squawfish) and some native suckers and chubs. Those fish are no good to fish for and you are arrested if you keep any of them. There is no limit on sports fish taken from the reservoir, in an effort to keep them out.[/#0000ff]
[#0000ff][/#0000ff]
[#0000ff]DON'T GET ME STARTED.[/#0000ff]
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