05-20-2011, 08:13 PM
One of my out of state fishing buddies came back into town for a few days even though the weather and moon charts weren't ideal. We arrived at 8 a.m. at the boat ramp and noticed 7 or 8 different DWR trucks around and several officers down at the bottom of the boat ramp.
My first thought was why they needed 8-12 officers to check for zebra mussels on a day when no more than a few boats would launch (ended up not seeing another boat all day). Then we saw that they were collecting gill nets and I actually got excited to be abel to see some of the results.
The results were: CHUBS!! And lots of them. They said they placed 5 nets and we saw the results of 4 of them. There were lots of tiger trout with several big females between 4 an 7 lbs. There were only 2 or 3 cutts and 1 bow from what I can remember and a good amount of smaller tigers. But the chubs were abundant, ranging from very small to very large. I am still yet to catch a chub from Scofield, probably due to how I fish, but the chubs were throughout just about every net.
Seeing all the chubs with several large tigers tells me that the tigers are getting huge eating chubs, the cutts aren't as successful as the tigers at eating chubs or are just deeper away from the nets, and the bows aren't going to make a comeback. I also think the tigers and cutts aren't really doing a good enough job at controlling the chubs.
With the new tiger musky program, I am thinking that several thousand musky need to planted into Scofield (and hoping that it will happen). Scofield is too big to poison, and I don't think they want to drain it. The musky could take care of the chub and then receive smaller and smaller plantings just to keep the chub in tact. We don't want Scofield to turn into a Joe's Valley with a few huge trout and lots of small ones, so hopefully they put the Musky in there soon.
As far as our fishing report goes, the weather was crazy with lots of snow mixed with sunshine, but no wind at all for most of the trip. But the fishing was horribly slow and we tried everything and every spot that we have fished with success in the past. We ended up with about 10 fish in 6 or 7 hours, all but one being a tiger. Thankfully 6 of the fish were over 17"s with two right around 22-23". It was still fun getting out and seeing the gill net results in person.
Any other ideas as to how to handle the Scofield chub problem?
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My first thought was why they needed 8-12 officers to check for zebra mussels on a day when no more than a few boats would launch (ended up not seeing another boat all day). Then we saw that they were collecting gill nets and I actually got excited to be abel to see some of the results.
The results were: CHUBS!! And lots of them. They said they placed 5 nets and we saw the results of 4 of them. There were lots of tiger trout with several big females between 4 an 7 lbs. There were only 2 or 3 cutts and 1 bow from what I can remember and a good amount of smaller tigers. But the chubs were abundant, ranging from very small to very large. I am still yet to catch a chub from Scofield, probably due to how I fish, but the chubs were throughout just about every net.
Seeing all the chubs with several large tigers tells me that the tigers are getting huge eating chubs, the cutts aren't as successful as the tigers at eating chubs or are just deeper away from the nets, and the bows aren't going to make a comeback. I also think the tigers and cutts aren't really doing a good enough job at controlling the chubs.
With the new tiger musky program, I am thinking that several thousand musky need to planted into Scofield (and hoping that it will happen). Scofield is too big to poison, and I don't think they want to drain it. The musky could take care of the chub and then receive smaller and smaller plantings just to keep the chub in tact. We don't want Scofield to turn into a Joe's Valley with a few huge trout and lots of small ones, so hopefully they put the Musky in there soon.
As far as our fishing report goes, the weather was crazy with lots of snow mixed with sunshine, but no wind at all for most of the trip. But the fishing was horribly slow and we tried everything and every spot that we have fished with success in the past. We ended up with about 10 fish in 6 or 7 hours, all but one being a tiger. Thankfully 6 of the fish were over 17"s with two right around 22-23". It was still fun getting out and seeing the gill net results in person.
Any other ideas as to how to handle the Scofield chub problem?
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