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I don't mean to stir the pot but simply to make a statement:
It appears I see numerous posts in this thread and other threads stating how high the Pike population is in Yuba - yet we see few pictures of the fish posted here or anywhere for that matter. I have caught numerous pike in Yuba and know other people that have as well yet NONE of them will say it has a large population of pike.
I feel we all like to catch fish here and especially big fish -there are few other species in Utah that can consistently obtain 38"+ and very few other locations to catch these fierce fighting fish. As a proposal - let's push for more forage to be added to the lake instead of eliminating the predators???
This would allow for better fishing and larger fish - I think all of us on this board (no matter what species it may be) would enjoy more large fish in this state.
It just seems that eliminating the predator (pike) is along the same school of thought as eliminating gun manufacturers to lower homicide rates...
If you eliminate pike you just have a different predator (walleye and maybe smallies)....and then if you eliminate them...well, you have too many panfish and they stunt their own growth....
Also some people are working to add cover/structure to the lake so the prey/panfish have more cover when the water is down...this could help balance things as well.
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lol well that is a nice though.. but none of that maters to the water useres that use the water in yuba! and they are the ones that control how much or how little water is in the lake at any given time.. and that is all the lake needs is water to be in it at the right times of the year... plus the CARP have been taking over smowley but sureley over the last 3 years.. the pike are in no danger. the perch and walleye are tho..
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I have to agree with the fuzzyone !! There have always been pike in Yuba due to the connection to Redmond. 30 years ago, when I first started to fish Yuba, the water was basicly irrigation and although drawn down, not to the extremes that you have seen in the last decade. Yuba is now a storage for the Power plant in Delta and they have different demand scheduals than farmers and tend to use more water. Couple that with the drought, draw down for dam repairs, and you have the current situation. The only bright spot is that the Northerns will invade the shallows in the southeast end and munch on the young carplings before they get to big, but they also like the perch and walleye, easier to swallow. Another reason that there have not been that many caught, there really is not that many people that fish Yuba. I doubt that after ice out you would see more than two or three boats on the lake who were fishing. Yuba gets more use from the water ski crowd than fisherman. It got a boost for a short time when DWR was stocking trout, but after they stopped that, use went down again. A small dedicated number of Pike hunters will utilize it extensivly, but as long as the perch/walleye cycle is down, it will not get much pressure.
As to the structure, one of the last things that Charlie Thompson did as Central Region Biologist was to target Yuba for the placement of structure. Unfortunatly, several years after these projects were completed, the water users drew the lake down to work on the dam. With the water level low, most of the structure was exposed and some of our wonderful public set fire to most of it. To my knowledge, nothing has been done to replace these past efforts. Without places to hide, young of the year perch and walleye are easy meals for everyone at the table.
In spite of this, Yuba still is a great fishery, just changed over the years. Like Utah Lake however, it is an example of what happens when Carp run amoke !!!
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The bottom up approach to fisheries management never has worked and never will. The existing forage fish need habitat to make it in western reservoirs. In the past in Yuba and other reservoirs we protected predators which (like coyotes) multiply until they exceed their carrying capacity. They consume all available prey and then die off in mass. The result is prey rebounding slowly and predators rebounding right behind them. If we could establish habitat that is suitable for prey cover we could minimize the cycle but most likely not eliminate it. The best answer right now is to find a balance between predators and prey. This is done by removing the predators in enough numbers to salvage enough prey to reproduce successfully. If you add more prey you will only create a larger more catastrophic cycle. The more forage without habitat (stable water supplies), the more food available to predators, the higher the predator reproductivity, the more predation.
I guess what I am saying is that you can't take a predator (burbot, brown trout, brook trout, pike, striped bass, smallmouth bass, etc.) and put them in a situation outside of their native range where they had conditions in place that stabilized their populations and expect them not to thrive. We have huge fluctuations in our reservoirs which benefit the predators and not the prey by concentrating the forage fish in an area without any cover. We have very limited amounts of submerged vegetation that prey fish can use as cover to begin with. We also have native fish that have not evolved with the predators listed above, because of this do not often fit the fill as forage fish.
Drew
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Thanks for your very measured and informed response. I have a question--others probably have the same--is there anything that can be done to create more habitat for forage fish or can the habitat (meaning vegetation) just not grow here? I know there was the Christmas tree project down at Yuba, has there been evidence that that has been effective? I guess I just want to know if there is anything that can be done or if the boom/bust cycle is just something we have to live with. Thanks again for your information, I really appreciate hearing from an authority.
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Drew, why can't we build artifical reefs like Arizona does on the their waters? Bass and Walleye organizations would be more than willing to help fund these kind of things. Plus, we might be able to drum up local sponsors too.
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The number one reason is irrigation company resistance. The DWR has put some structure in Yuba, Huntington North and a few others but irrigation companies have concerns about these structures coming loose and blocking the outlet structures or hindering water movement in any way.
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Drew speaks the truth !!! If you think dealing with us is easy, try the water users. They have the upper hand on everything. What would be nice would be to go in and seed the banks of these resivoirs when in drawdown state and let natural vegatation grow ( tamirask is not desirable, neither is phragmites). Then when the water comes up, voila, structure. Ask Wayne Gustaveson what the upside of the drought has been on Powell. As all that growth is flooded, there has been an explosion of Bass, Crappie, Bluegill, etc over the whole lake. Again, the biggest issue is the water users and what they will allow the DWR to do. It is a thankless job Drew, keep up the good work !!!
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If I understand, harvesting the Pike from Yuba is a good thing.
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hey Drew.. is there ever going to be any effert to remove the biggest predators in Yuba?? the CARP out number all predators in the lake and are by far A bigger problem than any other factur. other than the water that is.. i'm sure removering the carp would be even more beneficial to yube than anything else the DWR could do!
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Find an endangered species in the drainage that the carp are affecting ala Utah Lake/June Sucker, and you can get millions to remove the carp to improve the water quality. Ain't no such critter or plant in Yuba, so we are the only cure !!!
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I was on Yuba this AM. Trolled, cast lures until my arms were about to fall off. Nothing. Not a bump.
I noticed a gill net in the water, in fact we saw three of them so I called the springville DWR to see when they were pulling nets and Mike advised me that Jordon was there and he could answer my questions. I zipped down the lake and found them at the narrows pulluing nets.
He took the next 20 minutes or so explaining what they had been finding in their net samples. Some of it I expected, some of it surprised me. For starters, aside from the abundent carp, the number one specie showing up was pike. They had taken pike up to 40' in their nets along with numerous smaller pike.
The net they pulled while I was there had one northern and three walleye about 28". Absolutely beautiful fish. Jordon stated that they had netted trout (3lbers), smallmouth, Perch to about 13-14", walleye all about the same age class (27 to 28") and the afore mentioned pike. The pike stomachs contained only carp. The walleye had small perch as did the larger perch.
I was surprised about the smallmouth even though Drew had told me the same story earlier.
The northerns were just getting over the spawn with a few of them containing eges. The trout were reproducing in the reservoir leaving the deck of their boat covered in eggs and milt.
There is a lot more to the story and I hope everything I've mentioned is correct.
I'll continue to try to perfect my northern techniques, but with the knowledge that there are big walleye and smallmouths there I might spent 1/2 my time chasing pike and the other 1/2 for walleye. If I'm going to spend my time not catching fish, I might as well not catch walleye and smallmouth.
Thanks Drew and all of your hard working guys for all you do!
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You were right when you taked to me the other day about the Pike maybe being post spawn and possibly a little lethargic. I've never went after Pike for that amount of time and been skunked. But then again I've never fished Yuba and am told to get used to that smell ha ha. Thanks for the tips!
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Good thread Bigguy! And thanks Drew, for taking the time to get on here and talk to us about all these things. I think that Powell is a HUGE success story of fishing in the west. If they can maintain a striper population and still have predators there, they must be doing something very right.
I wonder if the presence of rip rap (medium sized boulders) would do the trick. I bet that makes up 75 percent of the structure in powell and there is no way a 500 pound boulder placed on the south end of the lake is going to roll down to the dam. That along with planting vegetation would be a very good thing. I know powell and Yuba are two VERY different places but HUGE schools of Stripers seem pretty daunting to manage as well.
I know how you feel Drew, about putting another forage fish in there but what is stopping the DWR from putting emerald shiners in there like in Yuba? I cant see that doing any harm and it seems like its working at willard with the minimum cover they have?
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lol i know a lot of guy's think that planting more forage fish in yuba is the anser.. but it's not! there are fat head minnows,red side shiners,guppy's,(from the hot springs) dace minnows,scopin,utah sucker's, utah chub, carp,crawdads, sunfish, and perch..in the lake allredy.. it realy dont need more forage fish..
what it needs is a lot less carp. and a lot more water!!
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[#008000][font "Arial"][size 3]Maybe they could get on the wagon with the Utah lake June Sucker predator feeding program ?
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