plant tiger trout in the berry

[RapalaUt]

No interest in tigers or perch, but smallmouths might be interesting.
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[Kent]

It already has a few smallmouths, the bucket biologists took care of that. However, they apparently don't reproduce well up there or they would be more plentiful.
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[RapalaUt]

Interesting. I didn't know that.
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[duckdog1us]

i have caought a small mouth out of the berry b4
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[fuzzyfisher]

well let see if i can add to the list of lakes where there are perch and chub.. by the way Scofield had perch in it at one time along with carp the carp are still in the lake as well..

fish lake.
johnson res.
millmeddow.
Yuba.
most all the lower siver river. and D,A,M,D
jordannelle.
utah lake.
jorden river.
most all the canales that run through salt lake city.
lake powell
and so meny small ponds i cant even start to name them all..

bottom line perch and chub live just fine together and rune a lake about the same.. diffrence is perch are much better eating then chub are.. [sly]
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[Weekend_Warrior]

Lots of people are also missing the point that this has been tried already. Electric lake is a deep sided reservoir that is FULL of shiners. They stocked tigers in there a long time ago. I've caught lots of them. None of them over 14 inches.

Other "trophy" tiger lakes i've fished in Northern Utah, on the Manti, on 1000 lake and on the Boulder have NO MINNOWS of any kind and i've personally caught Tigers over 4 lbs in all of them.

Obviously the new state record shows that they do eat minnows but i'm sure that fish ate lots of bugs as well. I think the cutts at the berry are better at minnow control. I'd be happy to see 90% bear lake bonniville cutts in the berry. I think the kokes feed on too much of the zoo plankton that could help juvenile cutts get over the hump faster. The other 10% I'd do triploid rainbows just for variety.

This is all just my opinion and I know many will not agree with me.
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[fuzzyfisher]

hey man we got to get together and do some fishing a E-lake.. i have been catching some tigers out of there that are 3 to 4 lbs.. hit one last year that was 24 inchs and 4 lbs.. they have only been in there for i think 5 years now.. so not too long .. E-lake is very deep i think it might have been better if the DWR tryed splake insterd.. but i have been haveing fun with the tigers in there anyway..lol [sly]
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[doggonefishin]

The letter below was posted in another public fishing forum, talking about this very subject, so I feel it is appropriate to add here. It covers many questions that have been raised here.


"We are actually working on a survey to decide some of the future management directions for Strawberry. And though a petition may help bolster some support for such a cause, unfortunately petitions do not get much of the needed information out to the public. I think we have discussed this with you in the past, we have a few concerns with what you are suggesting that I will reiterate.

First of all, we have limited production in our hatcheries, and with shrinking budgets and recent state audits, production will become more limited. Therefore we cannot increase production to add a species to our current stocking quotas.

Also, the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job. In addition, the tigers are not as easily caught by anglers. One of our many goals at Strawberry is to provide a fishery where people can expect high catch rates, and our experience at other reservoirs is that tigers do not provide this. Yes, many anglers do figure out how to catch them, but the average angler does not catch many. We also get a considerable amount of natural reproduction from the cutthroat (35% of our cutthroat population on average), and we would get none from the tigers. Basically we would have fewer fish in the reservoir as a result of switching cutthroat for tigers, again making chub control more difficult with tigers. We closely monitor the fish in Strawberry every year, and our cutthroat are looking great as far as condition, fat levels, and growth. Cutthroat often look skinny compared to some other fish, but that is how they naturally grow until they get to larger sizes when they put on more girth. Increasing in length faster than they put on girth is their strategy to become a more effective predator, and it works. However, you may have noticed that cutthroat numbers have declined somewhat in the last couple of years, and is due to a couple of year classes of stocked fish not surviving well. These stocked fish came in undersized, and many were eaten. Cutthroat numbers should be on the rebound over the next couple of years, and we need them for chub control.

One possibility would be to switch rainbow production for tigers. However, based on angler opinion surveys we regularly do at Strawberry, I do not think this would be a popular option. Most anglers want more rainbows, not fewer, or none if we made the switch. If angler opinion did show that they wanted tigers instead of rainbows, we could consider that option. However, in any king of survey or petition it would be necessary that the anglers were aware that they would be giving up rainbows to get the tigers.

As far as kokanee, there is not much to bargain with there. We only raise a few thousand pounds of kokanee (compared to 100,000 lbs of cutthroat and rainbows), and that would not be enough to stock the numbers of tigers we would need to show up in the creel.

Again, a petition would help gain some interest and support for such a change, but we have to look at the broader picture as well. We could not make any such changes unless there was considerable evidence that the switch would work for us biologically (chub control, and other such factors), would provide the desired fishery (high catch rates), is cost effective from a production standpoint, and is what the majority of the angling public wants (would need to be determined from a broader scale angler survey).

I hope this helps clarify our current position on this. And by no means am I anti-tigers (or anti- most fish species for that matter). They all have their place. Thanks for letting me comment.


Alan Ward
Strawberry Project Leader
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources"




A couple of extra points worth mentioning.

1. From the letter. " the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job."

I think that because tiger trout are named after a ferocious land mammal predator, people assume they are equally predaceous. While they may indeed serve a role in managing chubs, the biologists are currently unsure about their controlling abilities, while they are quite certain that Bear Lake cutts work well in this role.

2. I almost hate to bring it up, but Gmanhunter is right about the perch and chubs. All of the examples given by you guys where perch and chubs currently exist (Starvation, Jordanelle, Fish lake,etc) have the same situation of dwindling chub numbers. Starvation chubs now are all big, very old, and as TD's pictures show, often have sores and tumors on them. Jordanelle is not far behind. Their chubs are all big and old. (Big enough to regularly suck down a 4 inch stickbait) Fish lake chubs are now so rare that the Lake trout now eat rainbows instead.

That said, perch are a horrible idea for Strawberry. You are trading a currently well managed potential problem in our current state at Strawberry for an unmanageable problem that perch would represent. Let us pray that we never go there.


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[fuzzyfisher]

(unmanageable problem that perch would represent. Let us pray that we never go there. )

did you mean again?

at one time Strawberry did have perch in it as well.. [crazy]
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[doggonefishin]

Yep, and it was one of the reasons they poisoned it back in the day. They have said they can't poison it again, so yeah, perch would be rather unmanageable compared to what they are doing with chubs.

Let's leave the Berry as it is.
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[LakeDrifter]

Caught at the ladders! as the ice was only 100 yds out[]
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[duckdog1us]

i just hope you let it go
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[PBH]

[quote kentofnsl]Interesting that on at least Minersville the cormorants may consume more trout than anglers consume.[/quote]

Looks to me like cormorants "out fish" anglers 4:1. And cormorants NEVER practice catch and release!!

When talking about fisheries management, "harvest' isn't always "anglers". Many times managers have to make regulation changes to compensate for animal behavior. Minersville is an excellent example.
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[joshmobile]

In the mid 1990's the DWR decided they were going to stop stocking rainbows in Strawberry. This pissed off a lot of fisherman so they created a group of fisherman to change the policy. The policy was changed.

http://strawberryanglers.com/

If so many people are concerned about issues with Strawberry why not attend the monthly meetings and voice your opinions. Its $10 a year and they do a lot of good for the reservoir. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links to the site but is non profit association. Here is the facebook page that was recently created.

https://www.facebook.com/StrawberryAnglersAssociation
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[Fishrmn]

They had to stop planting Rainbow Trout. The method that they were using to sterilize the fish wasn't approved by the FDA. They were feeding them food that was laced with methyltestoterone.

Now they heat shock the eggs to produce triploid offspring.
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[Jacksonman]

I don't think anyone is advocating replacing cutts with tigers at the berry. Strawberry should always be a cutt lake. But why not replace some of the bows with other species is what some of us are saying.

The young tigers would do best only in a few areas at Strawberry (rocky shorelines). Why not stock ten thousand smaller tigers (5-6 inches) in 3-5 different places in the lake instead of a few thousand larger bows (7-10 inches)? Small tigers seem to survive better than small bows due to their behavior. I''d much rather have 4 small tigers planted for every bow planted for up to 25% of the bows.

While we are at it, why not replace another 15% of the bows with sterile brookies? The heavy weeds in parts of the lake would be great for them, they are easy to catch, and would be a fun option for the novice and experts alike.

The great thing about sterile brookies and tigers is that if it doesn't work, STOP PLANTING THEM, and they will disappear.

With all the fish going into Strawberry, I wonder why isn't there a fish hatchery at Strawberry? That would seem to save money and time and improve the fishery dramatically. Just a thought but not well thought out.

I found it amusing that one strike against the tiger is that they are too hard to catch, but some anglers figure it out. So we are intentionally stocking dumb fish so novice fishermen using bait and hooking fish in their guts and gills can release them (cutts)? All the more reason to add tigers, even if they are not protected by the slot.

I also have to doubt their conclusions about tigers not doing as well as cutts at keeping chubs in check. Scofield is a horrible example. The 8 fish limit decimated all the chub eating trout and the slot came too late. The also planted as many cutts as they did tigers on Scofield yet for the most part, only the tigers are getting big on cutts. I have fished Scofield a ton and seen gill nets pulled three times. Big tigers seem to outnumber big cutts 20 to 1 and small cutts seem to outnumber the small tigers by the same numbers. Cutts seem to have a bottleneck in growth rates at Scofield directly attributed to switching over to chubs that the tigers don't seem to have a problem with.

Out of the 100% of bow weight/money spent on Berry bows now, I would say take 20-25% and spend it on smaller tigers (2-3 small tigers for every bow), and another 15-20% on sterile brookies (3-4 brookies for every bow), and take the remaining 60% for bows and still reduce the amount planted for size (instead of planting them at 7-8 inches, plant them at 9-10 inches, so maybe only 3 larger ones are planted for every 5 that are currently planted). By doing this, the exact same amount of fish are planted, more species are added, dumb anglers can still catch their cutts, and areas that don't attract cutts will likely attract these other species, and bows may actually be more plentiful as more will escape the larger cutts.

This would be my dream come true for the berry (along with including tigers in the slot) and I think it would do nothing but make the lake better for everyone.
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[PBH]

[quote Jacksonman]Why not stock ten thousand smaller tigers (5-6 inches) in 3-5 different places in the lake instead of a few thousand larger bows (7-10 inches)? Small tigers seem to survive better than small bows due to their behavior. [/quote]

Due to their behavior? What does that mean?

Would a cormorant not eat a 5" tiger trout because of it's "behavior"?


Why do they stock 7-10" rainbows?
What time of year would tiger trout be available when they reach 5-6"
Would hatcheries be able to produce enough 5-6" tiger trout to stock Strawberry without negatively impacting other fisheries that rely on tiger trout stocking? What about sterile brook trout -- which other fishery would lose their quota of sterile brook trout in order to accommodate Strawberry?
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[flygoddess]

[quote PBH][quote Jacksonman]Why not stock ten thousand smaller tigers (5-6 inches) in 3-5 different places in the lake instead of a few thousand larger bows (7-10 inches)? Small tigers seem to survive better than small bows due to their behavior. [/quote]

Due to their behavior? What does that mean?

Would a cormorant not eat a 5" tiger trout because of it's "behavior"?


Why do they stock 7-10" rainbows?
What time of year would tiger trout be available when they reach 5-6"
Would hatcheries be able to produce enough 5-6" tiger trout to stock Strawberry without negatively impacting other fisheries that rely on tiger trout stocking? What about sterile brook trout -- which other fishery would lose their quota of sterile brook trout in order to accommodate Strawberry?[/quote]


Who cares! That would make one stop shopping[]
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[duckdog1us]

so fly goddess you are for this idea?
then why dont you sign it ?
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[flygoddess]

Sorry for the false hope, I am one of the "It ain't broke, so don't *%$@ with it".
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