Willard Minimum Wiper Length

[Gemcityslayer]

This is not a report, just wanted to see what others thought about this. Discuss.

Over the last year or two I have seen a lot of pictures of people keeping smaller wipers from Willard. I do not fault these anglers for doing so, I would have a hard time letting them go too. They are tasty buggers at any size. But since wipers don't reproduce it kind of seems like a waste of the resource's potential in Willard to keep them when they are 12-15". Does anyone agree with me or have any thoughts on a minimum length?

I wonder what effect say a 16" minimum length restriction on wipers would have on the overall population size? I am just curious what everyone thinks. Like I said, in theory I think it would be better to let the smaller ones go but I'm not smug enough to suggest I have the willpower to do that unless it was the law. I'm going to be hitting Willard soon once I get some free time from work and I will probably keep smaller wipers if I catch them.

What made me think of this was a body of water in my home state I used to fish regularly. Glendo Reservoir is known for its stellar walleye fishing. 4-5 years ago or so the game and fish implemented a 15" minimum length on walleye harvest in hopes that it would increase the overall size of the population. It did its job but a lot of people complained about it initially... now I think everyone is satisfied with the results. It took a few years to make a difference though.
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[AllFish]

Normally I let most all go back regardless of size, just not my favorite fish and at times, a nuisance catch when after walleye. More of a problem currently now that the wiper population is so much greater than the walleye population. According to the DWR netting results. [:/]

Problem is, there is so many being stocked and they are so easy to catch that license sales justify planting more of them. $$

To address your question, sure many more would make it to a little larger size if a slot limit was implemented, but you wouldn't see many wipers make it much over the slot. A lot of wipers being stocked and alot being taken out, stringers full going out daily right now.
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[SkunkedAgain]

I like your idea for the catching part of things, however, I expect TD or someone will put the feed source into the equation and tell us that letting the wiper get bigger before harvest will further limit the feed supply which will cause the fish to most likely get skinny and not be the footballs we are used to... I believe that is part of the balancing act the biologists are trying to work to keep the lake healthy and doing well... They might tell us we can have bigger, but it will cost us numbers of fish in the basket and since licenses sell when folks catch more fish, I'd expect they will want to stick to the current plan... but I do like larger fish as well and I personally try to use your 16-18" limit for where I keep them... As far as I'm concerned they taste about the same as walleye, so they are in danger of going home with me as well.. but I do like a big enough fish to be worth getting my knife dirty when I fillet them... Good topic for discussion, be interesting to see what thought comes up... Later J
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[Kent]

I don't recall when (probably around 2000) for a few years, at Willard, a wiper had to be over a certain length to be legal to keep.
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[PBH]

I don't fish Willard, so it really doesn't matter to me.


Willard is not an ideal lake for wipers. It is a very large surface area, but shallow. This means high water temps in the summer.

Wipers do not like high water temps. They need refuge from those temps in the summer.

so, consider a minimum size regulation to help increase average size of wipers in Willard -- I don't think it would work. I don't believe that the "bottleneck" is the harvest size. There are multiple other factors limiting the average size in Willard -- water temps, and forage being two major factors.




Far too often anglers want to relate fish size to mammal growth. Fish are not determinate growth animals. Leaving a fish in the water does not mean it will automatically grow larger. Fish are indeterminate. They do not always grow larger the older they are. With fish, size is determined by environment and growth rates.

so, if you truly want larger wipers in Willard, you have to figure out why growth rates are slow and fix that problem (if possible). One way to increase growth rates at many lakes: increase harvest!

So, by restricting harvest, you could actually hurt your objective (bigger fish). Maybe we need to consider encouraging more harvest?


(I attached a nice article for your enjoyment)
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[Gemcityslayer]

Appreciate all the thoughts and comments.

I am well aware that in certain environments, with certain species, harvest is a necessity to produce larger fish. I am not one of those anglers who thinks catch and release is the be all end all when it comes to fish management. At the end of the day I put my trust in the fisheries biologists who have not only an understanding of the population dynamics, but all the data at their fingertips to make sound decisions.

I do think there are factors at play that might make this situation call for a minimum length though. Because wipers are a hybrid fish, you can really dial in the population dynamics. If harvest is necessary to promote larger fish in the population, why not just stock less of them? Another factor is overall harvest rate. If harvest is high like it was at Glendo Reservoir, many fish are not reaching their potential because they are being removed early - regardless of any other relevant factors. If you have low harvest rates that is a different story.

I am no expert on Willard or the wipers in there, but I don't think they are hitting a bottleneck in terms of size at 12-15". I think you could make that argument at 18-20" maybe? (Bottleneck in this case primarily caused by environment and food supply)
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[PACKFAN]

You will never win this conversation with PBS
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[Gemcityslayer]

Lucky for me then, because my goal isn't to win. Just to see what others think about it. I do know this was a success at the place I mentioned, Glendo Reservoir. It took a few years for the regulation to change the population dynamics...but it was successful. I think the data shows that people are keeping roughly the same number of walleyes as before, harvest has not really changed up or down... but the average walleye size has increased...

It is a balancing act I won't pretend it isn't. You don't want there to be too little harvest and have too many fish, too many mouths to feed.. that is not good for fish growth... but if you are harvesting lots fish before they can approach their "potential" that isn't good for population size either. You can't really look at one factor without considering the others... harvest rate should be compared with food supply and population numbers.

I think the vast majority of us would let go a 6-10" wiper if we caught one and it was in good enough shape to be released. Why? You can technically get a bite to eat off them just like you can with a perch that size. But it doesn't seem right to do with wipers. They don't reproduce like perch do. A lot of us would let a 12" wiper go too... in hopes that next time we or another angler catch them they'll be bigger. I don't think it is that big of a stretch to let go a 15-16" for that same reason.

If you think harvest leads to bigger fish that is fine I understand that viewpoint, but things are more complicated than they appear on the surface. Keeping a 10" wiper doesn't free up as much food for the remaining wipers as keeping a 15" wiper would. It is not just because they are smaller, but because they eat more insects and less baitfish when they are small.
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]DWR conducts annual netting surveys in the fall each year. That allows them the chance to determine survival rates by year and relative percentages of each year class. The other thing it provides is growth rates by year.

There is a good abundance of gizzard shad and the wipers are overall well fed...except for the few months when the shad have grown too large to be eaten by any but the very largest predators. All year classes feed well for the months in which there are young shad available. So it is not a matter of insufficient food.

Over the past few years the annual netting surveys seem to hold fairly true that fingerling wipers planted in the spring will exceed 6-7 inches by the end of that year. The next year they double that size. In their third year they hit the 18 - 20 inch mark...and grow more slowly after that.

Since wipers are planted in numbers to keep pace with observed shad populations, reduced planting does not seem to be a solution. Putting a size limit of 16 inches only aids the 2nd year fish to feed more until they reach the next plateau...usually within a couple of months or less.

Same ol' same ol'. You can grow plenty of wipers if there is plenty of food. And in Willard there is plenty of food but not for all year. If there were other major food resources...but less to go around all year...then reduced removal might help both the numbers and the size.

It should be evident to anyone reading the annual reports put out by DWR on Willard Bay that they REALLY DO have a pretty good handle on that water and on the species therein. If they felt that slot limits or minimum size restrictions would help the fishery they would likely institute them. If anything, they are planting fewer wipers now than in previous years...and there has never been a stunting problem or a problem with getting young fish to grow quickly to a good harvestable size.
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[Gemcityslayer]

I also think that in terms of harvest, there is a difference in how harvest affects a fish population in terms of numbers and in terms of size... when you compare implementing a size restriction vs changing the number of fish in a limit...(up or down).
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[Gemcityslayer]

Was waiting for you to jump in here. Some excellent points you make, as always.

I really do trust them to make the best decisions... I'm not one of the people on here who think they are clueless and don't know what the heck they are doing.

That is really the beauty of hybrid fish species... you can really dial in everything and make easy adjustments up or down in terms of number of fish stocked. It is so much easier to manage a population when they don't reproduce.
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[wiperhunter2]

[quote Gemcityslayer]
I do think there are factors at play that might make this situation call for a minimum length though. Because wipers are a hybrid fish, you can really dial in the population dynamics. If harvest is necessary to promote larger fish in the population, why not just stock less of them? Another factor is overall harvest rate. If harvest is high like it was at Glendo Reservoir, many fish are not reaching their potential because they are being removed early - regardless of any other relevant factors. If you have low harvest rates that is a different story.

I am no expert on Willard or the wipers in there, but I don't think they are hitting a bottleneck in terms of size at 12-15". I think you could make that argument at 18-20" maybe? (Bottleneck in this case primarily caused by environment and food supply)[/quote]
The numbers of wipers I catch at Willard seems to indicate that once they reach the 23" mark they become fewer in numbers. A few each year are caught longer than that but not many. 24 to 26" Wiper are rarely caught and I don't know of anyone that has caught one in Willard much over 26". There was a member that claimed that someone he knew caught one that was 30" last year, I find that hard to believe but he did post a pic of it and it was a very big fish. Now that the DWR have started stocking Walleye in Willard, their numbers will likely stay higher than they once were. The numbers of Wiper being stocked have declined over the years and I think the DWR have a good balance at this time but time will tell on that count.
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[Gemcityslayer]

I have been following this forum for over a decade, and closely too. Compared to most of you on here, I have a tiny fraction of the time spent fishing Utah waters. I have gleaned a lot of my information and opinions from you guys in the know...and the reports that are posted.

It seems to me like over the last few years there are less 20-24" class wipers being caught, maybe this is a false impression I have. And it seems like the 12-16" class fish are much more abundant in recent years. Maybe that is why they have cut back on stocking some?

I don't think implementing a minimum harvest length hurts overall harvest in the long run. If you buy into what PBH is saying in this situation, and he says less fish will be harvested due to a minimum length restriction at 15"... meaning less food for the remaining wipers.... why not simply stock less or raise the limit from 6 wipers to 8 wipers to balance this out?

I guess I have probably opened up a big can of worms here... It is kind of fun to think about the "what if's".... but at the end of the day I'm glad it is not up to me. I'm glad we have people who went to school and studied these things and make sound decisions on science and the information at hand. Rather keep commenting and help let this thread go on for pages and get locked, I think I'll just bow out from the discussion and agree with Tubedude. If the biologists thought a minimum length restriction was ideal, they would implement one. That is the bottom line.
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[wiperhunter2]

Actually the wiper limit has been cut back to 3 and I believe it is a direct result of them raising the limit to 6 a few years before. When they raised the limit I thought it was too high but I guess they were trying to find a balance and 3 must be the number. IMO, the reason for the average size dropping, a few year back, was because of the higher limit of 6, last year after they changed the limit, we started catching more of those bigger wipers again.
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[Gemcityslayer]

Ahh! Did not know that. Or I just forgot.

That is interesting.
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[PBH]

Good discussion so far.

Glad Packman could contribute something worthwhile.


So, we've looked at harvest, stocking, and forage. All appear to be in order at present. As correctly pointed out, with hybrids (or even in systems where natural reproduction is limited) we can dial in a preferred "size" simply through stocking. We see this all the time -- managers have to determine what anglers desire, then attempt to achieve that goal through stocking.

so, what is left that might be restricting the size? What is it that is holding those wipers up at ~23"??

I honestly think it's temperatures.

Look at what happens at Lake Powell with stripers. In the summer when surface water temps soar to 80 degrees, the larger stripers (>20") head deeper to cooler waters. They then proceed to starve because the shad population remains at the surface in those warm waters. At the same time, those smaller stripers (<20") are able to withstand those higher surface temperatures and you see summer boils of "small" stripers. It isn't until November when temps come back down to 60 degrees that those "large" stripers come back to the surface and the feeding frenzies begin.

so, what happens at Willard in the summer when surface temps rise? Wipers have no relief from the higher temps. This has to be a significant problem at Willard for those larger wipers -- they suffer! The smaller wipers, especially those 15 -16" fish we keep seeing, out compete those larger fish all summer long -- just like at Powell!

Look at all these other reservoirs that have had recent (or, not so recent) wiper stockings -- they all have 30 foot depths that those fish can escape higher surface temps. These places have very quickly grown wipers in excess of the average at Willard.



Would a size restriction help this situation?


As much as I hate to do this, I'm going to have to agree with TubeDud. I think Willard managers have it pretty well dialed in. I just don't know that there is much more you can do there -- and I think the wipers at Willard are pretty much what you're going to get there. That's not a bad thing at all. Willard is a fantastic fishery!

(FWIW: Gemcity -- I don't condone your ideas at all. Why wouldn't someone want to improve on something? Good discussion.)
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[DKStroutfitter]

One reason for more smaller wiper is the fact that there were a few years where Willard was stocked with very few wiper.

I see no need to place a slot on wiper in Willard.
We get what the Division can stock

There will be good and bad years.
The same for all species of fish in Willard.

I have become a big believer that when reservoirs that are built for irrigation purposes are also managed for sport fishing, there will be boom and bust cycles.
There reservoirs are managed as well as they can be with these restrictions.
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[mtncat1]

slayer i fished willard only once so far this year and ever wiper we caught was well over 20 inches and all pushed the 5 lbs mark ,last years wiper sizes and numbers were great for me also. plus the walleye are great sized and the crappie are huge , so it seems to me that the limits and stocking/reproduction numbers are right where they need to be , willard has produced some of its best fishing the last few years ,so why try to fix what isn't broken. just my opinion tight lines[]
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[MACMAN]

I agree the shallow water is the cause of the stunting, but there's hope for bigger fish now. If, and it's a big if, they can fill to capacity- there should be cool enough water for the wipers to escape the heat and still feed. I'm not sure how much the newly added dike material added, but it looks like about ten feet. That would put freeway bay at 24'+ and the SW corner well over 30. I think the bigger fish would show up. Do your best rain dance.
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[Jedidiah]

Brilliant idea: we all start working on petitions and legislation to have people stop watering their lawns. Then we get more water in the reservoirs and we don't have to feel guilty backing out of the driveway every Saturday while trying to ignore the jungle that our lawns have become. Win-win!
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