08-24-2009, 03:49 PM
I had mentioned earlier that I wasn't crazy about the 50 fish perch limit change. Let me elaborate a bit.
I'm like Dubob, perch are my favorite freshwater fish to eat. They seem to have become quite popular with a lot of Utahns. When a certain perch lake is doing well, there are veritable cities of Utahns trying to catch them through the ice. Lakes like Rockport and Echo are not huge reservoirs and when there are hordes of anglers hitting a medium sized body of water, all yanking 50 fish, (not hard to do) I could see some of these lakes being adversely affected by this. The 20 perch limit seemed to work OK for these waters.
The DWR states that "50 fish" lakes have had more stable perch populations. This is somewhat misleading, in that 2 of the lakes, Fish lake and Mantua, have stable water levels and huge weedbeds that will permit the perch to have a stable population (and stunt) regardless of the limit. Jordanelle and Pineview however, have had notable population swings recently. They also state that "10 fish lakes" have done poorly. Yubas problems have been well documented here and probably would have occurred regardless of the limit. Deer Creek is the other "10" lake and also has had ridiculous water issues and a large number of stunted predators that would supress the perch regardless of the limit. I really doubt the 10 fish limit has stopped very much harvest at DC the past few years. I guess I would just like to see regulations that match the individual water and not blanket statewide regulations decreed in the name of keeping the regs simple.
I agree with many of you that the Yuba (10 fish, no release during ice season), regs were not working well and am glad to see them changed.
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I'm like Dubob, perch are my favorite freshwater fish to eat. They seem to have become quite popular with a lot of Utahns. When a certain perch lake is doing well, there are veritable cities of Utahns trying to catch them through the ice. Lakes like Rockport and Echo are not huge reservoirs and when there are hordes of anglers hitting a medium sized body of water, all yanking 50 fish, (not hard to do) I could see some of these lakes being adversely affected by this. The 20 perch limit seemed to work OK for these waters.
The DWR states that "50 fish" lakes have had more stable perch populations. This is somewhat misleading, in that 2 of the lakes, Fish lake and Mantua, have stable water levels and huge weedbeds that will permit the perch to have a stable population (and stunt) regardless of the limit. Jordanelle and Pineview however, have had notable population swings recently. They also state that "10 fish lakes" have done poorly. Yubas problems have been well documented here and probably would have occurred regardless of the limit. Deer Creek is the other "10" lake and also has had ridiculous water issues and a large number of stunted predators that would supress the perch regardless of the limit. I really doubt the 10 fish limit has stopped very much harvest at DC the past few years. I guess I would just like to see regulations that match the individual water and not blanket statewide regulations decreed in the name of keeping the regs simple.
I agree with many of you that the Yuba (10 fish, no release during ice season), regs were not working well and am glad to see them changed.
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