any ice on echo or rockport(wanship] ?

[masterarcher]

just want to if anyone has been by the lakes i know last year rockport was fun to take the kids to and its that time again so if anyone has info and wishes to share it i would be greatful .... thanks all[]
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[mateo]

I think someone posted on another board that Rockport was ice free, or at least minimal ice, and echo, last I heard, was melting, but that was about a week ago.
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[PerchPile]

Echo is close. A friend tested it Sunday morning. Only three inches on north end. Many (thousands) dead fingerling perch just under clear ice. (?????) A dozen holes with zero bites and no fish on the finder.
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[mateo]

that's good news about the ice, but not so good about the perch.
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[masterarcher]

hey thanks that was what i was looking for was fresh news thanks for the quick update .....
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[masterarcher]

im going to be up at strawberry on thursday with about 10 people from work they want to try chicken creek so ill let you all know how we did a little contest is brewing at work so tips will hopefully help ,,thanks
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[mateo]

I just found this on the ut dwr site.

Hay just back from echo and its 90% frozen but I dont know how thick. Seen someone walking out on the ice with his auger but to me it didnt look safe. He was by the dam. so I hope this helps.
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[masterarcher]

thanks for the input just have to brag about this sight the dwr has a sight that you can look at and talk to but in the time it took me to post the same ice question i had 4 replies from'' bft ''thanks to you all my kids have a better chance of a good day of fishing thanks again
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[mateo]

That is definitely one of the great things about this site. I've tried referring people to this site after they post a question on another site, and three days later they still haven't received a reply, but then people get testy about advertising bft on their boards, so I gave up. I still look at doug miller's site, and the dwr site, and even utah on the fly, but nothing compares to bft.
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[Fishkid]

I wonder why the perch are dead.
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[mateo]

I saw this once at Pineview during the early summer. I don't remember the reason "the man" gave, but I think it was oxygen depletion, or something like that. People reported seeing black helicopters flying around though, so who knows?

I caught so many perch out of Echo last winter, that I doubt that this will have much effect on the fishing this year. Next year maybe.
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[fish4fish]

I mean no disrespect to you or your friend, but i hope that you friend really didnt see thousands of dead perch benieth the ice, for

1. Something has had to have killed them and if it killed them then it probably killed a large number of other fishes in the water.

2. If there are that many dead fish the surviving fish would have alot of easy reach food, that would slow down the ice fishing.

3. As the thousands of dead perch decompose it will raise the ammonia levels in the water, there by depleating the O2 levels, which would make a toxic level i the water which would poison the surviving fish in the water.

I sure hope that there isnt thousands of dead fish in echo it possiably will destroy the fishery there.
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[mateo]

Nope, only Doug Miller can do that[].
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[fish4fish]

LOL mateo, gave me a good laugh
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[mateo]

I'm here all week.

I'd be curious why there are dead perch too. Maybe they could use it at Mantua. Probably has something to do with el nino, and the weird fall/winter we've been having. First it's friggin cold, then it's fairly warm, then it's normal.. Oh, wait, that's Utah. The land of unusual weather patterns. I get so .
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[fishin4fun]

Masterarcher--

I'll be up there Thursday as well. Probably hit Jakes Bay at Chicken Creek East... I'll look for a bunch of co-workers whootin' and hollerin'.... running the smack with each fish caught. I will be with my boys and dad. Probably over near the islands if the ice is solid that far out.

F4F
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[needlefish]

Die-offs of young of the year panfish are common at at or just prior to ice-up. It's natures way of keeping a speices for outstripping it's food source. On some systems it needs to happen, or the individuals within the population WILL stunt.
GSD
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[Utcatman]

last year i caught more HUGE perch in echo than i did any where else. i had one day when i caught at least 35, 10-13 inch perch.. they were toads!! maybe the kill off of the smaller perch will increase catches of more fish in the larger range..
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[Out4Trout]

[cool]Man Pat, all of this Perch talk is about making me pee my pants in anticipation of the upcoming Perchie hunt! Last night at Sportsman's I saw a little jigging rapala in the perch pattern and just had to buy it and try it. I'm hoping with a little mill worm tipped on there with some anchovie smelly jelly should really help me to land some nice fatties up there, but we'll see how it works. Obviously after I catch a little feller, I'm tipping the lure with perch meat. I'm also looking forward to trying out some killer bait bugs that this cool guy gave me!
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[DrewT]

To a point your argument is correct. However, if the population dynamics get too out of wack, you lose that largest class of fish. Let me explain: In general, perch begin life feeding on plankton and as they grow, they add inverts and fish to their diet. However, if the competition becomes too great perch are unable to grow large enough to add fish to their diet. You then have multiple age classes feeding on plankton and inverts. They then literally eat themselves out of house and home and the population crashes. You see this all over the west with perch: boom and bust - over and over. Pineview over the past few years is a classic example of this.

Quite frankly, perch need a predator more successful than themselves over the long haul to sustain large size. Yuba worked because it had two predators in it that are fantastically efficient perch eaters: walleye and the remnant pike population. One of the hopes with the tigers in Pineview was to control that perch population to avoid the cycle. Unfortunately, those tigers seem to have a preference for crappie.
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