02-22-2013, 12:46 AM
RE"They did basically the same study at Strawberry before the rotenone treatment there. They were trying to determine if they could plant enough Bear Lake Cutthroat in there to reduce the chubs to a manageable level. They couldn't. I'd wager that they can't plant enough Tiger Trout and Bear Lake Cutthroat Trout in Scofield to reduce the numbers of Utah Chubs to a manageable level."
Just to refresh everyones memory, the DWR had the right idea about Strawberry, but the wrong initial regulation. Remember when it reopened after the poisoning, they had a regulation where you could harvest cutts, but they asked people to voluntarily release the cutts? That was an epic failure and people with no self control harvested the cutts by the bucketful. The chubs weren't controlled for a number of years until the slot was instituted, and by then, you had big, mature chubs that are too big to be routinely eaten by fish and live 25 years. Once the slot was put in, the small chubs are well controlled at Strawberry and the fishery is in good shape, but the big, old chubs will be there for a long time to come.
My opinion FWIW (not much), is if you treated Scofield AND started there with a slot limit for tigers and BL cutts from the beginning, after treatment, it would keep the fishing good for a long time and the chubs wouldn't necessarily win. You just can't go back to general regs and harvest out all the trout predators or the chubs will quickly return, get big, and become entrenched. Also, Scofield is a shallow lake compared to the Berry and you probably would get a better kill than what they got at Strawberry.
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Just to refresh everyones memory, the DWR had the right idea about Strawberry, but the wrong initial regulation. Remember when it reopened after the poisoning, they had a regulation where you could harvest cutts, but they asked people to voluntarily release the cutts? That was an epic failure and people with no self control harvested the cutts by the bucketful. The chubs weren't controlled for a number of years until the slot was instituted, and by then, you had big, mature chubs that are too big to be routinely eaten by fish and live 25 years. Once the slot was put in, the small chubs are well controlled at Strawberry and the fishery is in good shape, but the big, old chubs will be there for a long time to come.
My opinion FWIW (not much), is if you treated Scofield AND started there with a slot limit for tigers and BL cutts from the beginning, after treatment, it would keep the fishing good for a long time and the chubs wouldn't necessarily win. You just can't go back to general regs and harvest out all the trout predators or the chubs will quickly return, get big, and become entrenched. Also, Scofield is a shallow lake compared to the Berry and you probably would get a better kill than what they got at Strawberry.
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