Crappies in Mantua???

[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]Recently read a Mantua report on the float tubing board in which an angler reported catching several species...including crappies. I know there were crappies in Mantua going back a lot of years, but have not heard of any since. So I addressed a query to Chris Penne (DWR). This is his response.[/#0000FF]

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Hopefully it's a misidentification. We have not introduced crappie into Mantua, so that can be ruled out. The trouble is, with their larger mouth, crappie seem like a hard one to misidentify. The only fish in Mantua that I can think of that could be with a crappie would be a green sunfish with their larger mouth and deeper body. We've seen some larger green sunfish in Mantua, but I would think an experienced angler would have a hard time calling a green sunfish a crappie due to the differences in coloration. We're going to be doing an electrofishing survey on Mantua in less than a month and will keep our eye out for any crappie. Thanks for the tip!
Chris
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[#0000FF]By the way, anybody else caught what they think was a crappie in Mantua recently?
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[BURLEY]

Seems to me , that if there is crappie in Mantua, there would have been some caught by the hard water fishermen. They/we covered basically the whole pond with baits the size and type that they would have been interested in. Just my thinking.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]Good reasoning. But "new" species have shown up unannounced in Utah waters before. Strange as it may seem, DWR is not the only source of new species introductions. There are actually folks who think they know more...or have a greater desire for a particular species...than the educated biologists at DWR. We lovingly refer to them as "bucket biologists."
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[not-a-purist]

Its not Mantua, but my boy caught a large wiper out of Cutler last summer. I posted about this last fall, but no one seemed very interested....

No doubt at all. 100% WIPER! I believe it was 22" long. No mistake.

I am curious if it was bucket biologists or and experiment with DWR. That being said, I would not put it past someone making the short drive from Willard to Mantua with a live well full of Crappie.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]Doofii (plural of doofus) in Utah who have live wells seem to think that these things allow them to move fish around at their whim. Illegal introductions have become a lot more common since live wells became more common.[/#0000FF]
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[#0000FF]Fortunately, not all live well dumpings "take". There are numerous cases of anglers finding dead fish of a species not normally found in a lake...but which might be common in another lake not far away. Finding a dead channel cat on the bank at Deer Creek has freaked out a few troutaholics. But when no live adults show up they breathe easier.
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[gaardvark]

I'm curious about the Wiper presence in Cutler, but not overly concerned about it. If a bucketeer brought them up every week all last year, all the DWR has to do to eradicate them is wait.
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[SkunkedAgain]

Hey on that wiper out of Cutler, they planted them in Wellsville Reservoir and I believe it has an outlet into the little bear, that flows into Cutler... So I think that one could have been an escapee that found it's way down there... Man wish I would have found it... I love to catch wiper... congrats... wish there were more of them that did the same thing, I'd love to catch more of them, but like mentioned they are sterile so they won't start a new population... That was probably like the tiger musky in Willard... I guess tigers could end up in Cutler as well, if Newton had an overflow, but it's probably not very good habitat for either species to thrive... wish there were White bass somewhere that would flow into Cutler, but guess the division doesn't like that idea... Fun to have lots of different varieties, just wish some of them would thin the carp out... Later J
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