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I took a drive this morning, to see if any ice was holding on uplake. Nope. It was wide open as far as I could see, all the way to above Buckboard. All the ramps were also open. Not sure if Firehole has opened up yet, but it won't be long. The fishing can be awesome at ice-off, especially for rainbows.
Just another reminder as we kick off the boating season. If you've been boating/fishing back east or down in the lower Colorado River Basin recently, make sure your boat is disinfected before launching it in the Gorge. We've dodged a few bullets, in the form of little invasive mussels, but we don't need to take any chances.
Quagga mussels were recently found in Red Fleet Reservoir, only 35 miles from the Gorge. No body of water is safe if we don't all take precautions. Check out the following link, for more up-to-date info on invasive mussels and what we can do to prevent their expansion:
[url "http://www.100thmeridian.org/"]http://www.100thmeridian.org/[/url]
Thanks, Ryno
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Hey Ryno,
Thanks for the update sounds good to me we will be hitting it shortly,
And I pray that everyone does pay attention to the warrning on the Quagga Mussels I know some people
just don't care, But hopefully with everyone watching everyone else that it will not happen to us.
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i hate to say it but with E-lake and now Red Fleet the colorado river. i think there is going to be a lot more waters added to the list sooner than any of us would hope.. [mad] [:/]
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If the damned federal govt wasn't so busy giving OUR money to incompetent Wall Street bankers, maybe they could afford a pressure washer or two at every ramp at every reservoir in the Western US.
I get so sick of people closin the barn door after the horse has been let out.
If quaaga's in Red Fleet, the Gorge ain't far behind.
That's a shame.
Oh well, ice off's here, time to fish...
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This might be a dumb question, but if a waters found to have been invaded by mussels, why don't they close the lake to boating. At least until they have a proven solution, I know it may not be a very popular idea, but that would help lessen the spread of this pest.
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The big problem is that a water is already infested by them for quite some time before the tests can even come back positive for them. Just ask Fuzzy about e-lake and Fish Lake. We need to find a way to kill them off without trashing everything in an infected lake.
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i was talking to a friend with the state parks and they are only trying to stop the spreading once they are there they cant stop them
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In the case of Red Fleet, it looks like they'll have an Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) technician working the launch from sun-up to sundown for the entire boating season. Not only will they get the opportunity for a hot wash when they come in, but they'll now have to get one when they leave.
I still think boater's can prevent the spread. Invasive mussels were found in the Great Lakes in the mid-1980s. Minnesota has a pretty aggressive AIS outreach/prevention program (which Utah based theirs on) and they've kept their list of infected waters to only a page. I think that's phenomenal when you consider how many lakes they have and how close they are to the original source on introduction.
By taking proper care of our own boats and gear, and making sure others are doing the same, I hope we can be just as successful. Ryno
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I talked to a DWR officer two weeks ago about Red Fleet and she told me that it was a false positive and that the tests were showing something else other than the mussels.
I was hoping that she was right but now I hear different. Damn the bad luck, I was hoping to hit Red Fleet this year. I know me not going there won't stop the spread but at least I won't have to second guess myself if it could have been me who spread it.
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