09-11-2013, 07:15 PM
[#0000FF]My ol' buddy, Therapist, can verify the days of Deer Creek largies. We both fondly remember hitting the flooded willow clusters in the north flats...using black and chartreuse plastics...to win local tournaments with fish that averaged almost 4#.
It was believed that by adding smallmouth to Deer Creek it would add another "level" of fishing without much of an impact on the other species already in the lake. At that time the rocky shorelines around the lake were swarming with crawdads. The largies dined well on them but there were "plenty" left over for the newcomers (smallies).
But it didn't take too many years for the smallies to explode in both size and population. There was some great fishing for a while. Then the smallies became bad neighbors...eating all the food needed by other species as well as eating the young of the other species while they were at it.
Most bassers recognize the different habitat preferences between largemouth and smallmouth. They can both live almost anywhere, but smallies prefer rocky shorelines whereas largemouths like protected coves and vegetation. Smallmouths outnumbered the largies and left them less habitat for spawning, feeding and hanging out. They continue to "coexist" but the brash little newbies are just a bit more aggressive in carving out the spots they want for themselves.
Until a largemouth gets big enough to push the smaller cousins around they have to put up with a lot of rowdy teenagers (smallies) pushing them around. A big largemouth gets old and cranky, just like humans, and is able to hold its own against most smaller fish. The only problem is that in Utah it takes a long time for one to get big...and the typical Utah tangler tends to want to take them home to show off...before dumping them forever into the freezer.
I, for one, am opposed to too many new regulations. Especially ones that are difficult to enforce with limited CO coverage. Hard enough to catch the folks who fish without licenses, trash the shoreline and keep overlimits. But I could definitely support at least a temporary moratorium on keeping largemouths in a tenuous ecosystem. That would mean training all the dimbulbs in being able to tell the difference between a largemouth and a smallmouth. Good luck with that. A lot of folks who catch either have no idea what they just caught.
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It was believed that by adding smallmouth to Deer Creek it would add another "level" of fishing without much of an impact on the other species already in the lake. At that time the rocky shorelines around the lake were swarming with crawdads. The largies dined well on them but there were "plenty" left over for the newcomers (smallies).
But it didn't take too many years for the smallies to explode in both size and population. There was some great fishing for a while. Then the smallies became bad neighbors...eating all the food needed by other species as well as eating the young of the other species while they were at it.
Most bassers recognize the different habitat preferences between largemouth and smallmouth. They can both live almost anywhere, but smallies prefer rocky shorelines whereas largemouths like protected coves and vegetation. Smallmouths outnumbered the largies and left them less habitat for spawning, feeding and hanging out. They continue to "coexist" but the brash little newbies are just a bit more aggressive in carving out the spots they want for themselves.
Until a largemouth gets big enough to push the smaller cousins around they have to put up with a lot of rowdy teenagers (smallies) pushing them around. A big largemouth gets old and cranky, just like humans, and is able to hold its own against most smaller fish. The only problem is that in Utah it takes a long time for one to get big...and the typical Utah tangler tends to want to take them home to show off...before dumping them forever into the freezer.
I, for one, am opposed to too many new regulations. Especially ones that are difficult to enforce with limited CO coverage. Hard enough to catch the folks who fish without licenses, trash the shoreline and keep overlimits. But I could definitely support at least a temporary moratorium on keeping largemouths in a tenuous ecosystem. That would mean training all the dimbulbs in being able to tell the difference between a largemouth and a smallmouth. Good luck with that. A lot of folks who catch either have no idea what they just caught.
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