Yuba

[strawberryquest]

I have been to Yuba six times this year. I have caught only one pike, small walleye and several carp. I see people fishing in boats and never see them catch anything. My question is the pike population not very good down their? It seems odd to go all these times and only one pike and never see anybody catching fish. Thanks for any input on this.
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[Blackellunge]

Yuba was awfully stingy to us last year. that ridiculous limit they put on the Northerns decimated the population. We only caught one Pike in 4 full days of fishing from my boat , and i'm very familiar with targeting these guys from my days of fishing Wisconsin/Minnesota. Its a shame but i have scratched this place off my list of lakes to hit this year.

good place to bowfish if legal ,those carp are in there thick!
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[strawberryquest]

I just looked up last years proclamation for yuba pike limit. Limit 20 and only one over 36". They must want them out of yuba.
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[utahgolf]

boom and bust cycle. I find it funny tho, some on here said the pike will continue to have successful spawns and great recruitment. Haven't heard much on that of late. the 20 fish limit came after the big boom but the limit of 6 was even unattainable for most people. Now you could put the limit at 1 and it has the same affect as having it at 20. Most will never catch one but 4-5 years ago it sure was fun. Gotta wait for some more high water years and hope the internet scouters don't spread the word and it's a slaughter fest within a week.
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[cje04]

It's been similar this year for me and those I have talked to as well.

Aside from low water and spawn challenge, would stocking pike make a difference in numbers in low water years?
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[wormandbobber]

The thing that you have to remember, though, is that fewer pike is GOOD because now the growth rates of those remaining will be much higher. The few pike that do spawn successfully or that are hatched will have the opportunity to grow fast and get big. The same could not be said during the "boom". The problem during the "boom" was that those small fish had no forage--they couldn't eat most of the carp because they were too big and there were really no perch to eat. So, they couldn't grow big. Now, because we are left with a fair number of large fish. Those small pike will not have a lot of competition to eat carp fry or the remaining perch. Unless, of course, the walleye numbers are up.

The "good" pike fishing that we had there for a couple years was similar to the great striper fishing at powell right now....the forage was gone and the loads of pike were hungry. Right now, the pike fishing is much tougher. Not because the fish aren't there, but because the fish that are there have plenty of food and competition is down. That is a good thing!
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[bk1]

Same old rhetoric out of the bobber. Knows nothing of the fishery. Blah blah blah growth blah. Here's what utah does not understand. People like to catch fish. It's their job to manage our fisheries. Proactive tends to work better than reactive. Pbh should be along soon!![fishon]
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[Fowl-Hook]

You Feel the Tag Team Coming?

Less fish with more size, DWR management plan # 649.
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[utahgolf]

did you fish yuba a few years ago? There were plenty of big fat healthy upper 34-39 inch fish, and they were a blast, sure there were a bunch of hammer handles that needed thinning out. But yuba stinks right now because there really aren't that many fish. Sure there are some big ones in there but what good does it do to have a handful of large fish in a large place like yuba? doesn't make it worth the drive. If we get some high water, I hope the perch are transplanted. Planting them in low water years doesn't do anything. The carp also need to be addressed, they eat more fry than you can imagine.
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[wormandbobber]

I have fished Yuba every year for a number of years now....my best fishing at Yuba was about 8 years ago. At that time, we were catching lots of big pike. Since then, the fishing has changed from lots of big pike to lots of little pike and now to a few big pike. This spring when I fished it, I ended up with 3 fish--all of them were over 30 inches. To me, the fishing this spring was better than 3 years ago when all I caught were little pike (even though I caught more of them). When I am pike fishing, I would much rather catch one big fish than a bunch of little dinks.

Unless the reservoir is drained, nothing is going to happen to the carp. I also believe, based on what has happened in the past, that pike numbers will spike again if we get high water and good recruitment. What thinning the numbers of pike will do now is create more big fish for when recruitment and pike numbers do spike. IF the numbers of pike stayed high, we would lose the big fish and be left with lots of drinks. I, for one, don't want to catch just a bunch of dinky hammer handles. The problem with carp being the main forage is that unchecked recruitment of small pike will result in a very narrow bottleneck where very few, if any, fish can fit through and actually grow large. If we widen that bottleneck, though, and allow more fish through it by reducing competition for the available forage, when numbers do spike and we do have good recruitment, we will have a good number of big fish.
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[Fowl-Hook]

It's a Kill them all approach without the mandatory in front of it, after all Yuba has so many other alternative fish attractions.
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[utahgolf]

so back to the point I was making, once these fish hit the mid 30 range they can eat carp easily, an unlimited supply of food. When a pike is caught in the spring and posted on the internet, the hype monster starts and tons of people flood yuba and every decent fish caught is killed. I'm boggled why we need to kill all of those big fish when there really aren't that many of them. and saying that you are only allowed to keep one fish really doesn't matter when you have hundreds of people hitting yuba as hard as they can each weekend. That's a lot of dead big pike even if they are only allowed one each. The numbers do not reflect the "kill all the pike you can" mentality.
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[wormandbobber]

This is where we differ....for a small hammer handle to grow large, it just needs its fair share of forage and it will replace the harvested big fish rather quickly. But, those small fish won't fit through the bottleneck if there is too much competition....competition between pike big or small. The reality is that all of the pike will feed on the small carp fry, but only the big ones can feed on larger carp. I believe that by eliminating pike from all size ranges, you make room for better growth of the small ones and those that remain. And, by improving the growth rates of the small ones, you will ultimately end up with more large pike. If too few pike are harvested, you lose the large pike.

Right now, not much harvest is happening at Yuba because people aren't catching many....not because the fish are not there, but because they have a plentiful food source and they are not hungry. From what I understand from the most recent fish surveys is that we have good numbers of large pike. Catching them, though, is difficult. This to me is a sign of high growth rates...when the fishing was so good a few years ago, fish were readily caught because there wasn't an available food source and fish were hungry.

So, right now the hordes of fishermen are not flocking to Yuba to catch pike. What does that mean? It means that fewer pike will be harvested and the numbers of pike recruited into the system will increase rather than decrease.

Have you spent much time at Redmond?
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[Blackellunge]

what we need is a balance of many year classes of Northern's inhabiting the lake, not just a few monsters patrolling the abyss!. with these temps going through the roof the big girls will be safe from most all anglers until fall. i bet they are already very deep.

those fish have to feel like they are in a fish tank without any weedbeds to hide in - in the midwest thats all we fished for pike, the weeds! one doesnt have to clean off their lures much in Utah
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[wormandbobber]

I just read a study from Wisconsin. Although I hate comparing their waters to ours because they are so different, there were a few interesting things from this study:
1) regulations were changed on several waters to a 32-inch minimum size for harvest.
2) on all of the waters the numbers of pike increased dramatically
3) after 3 years and after dramatic increases in pike numbers, the size, quality, and growth rates of pike decreased dramatically resulting in what appeared to be a high-density stunted fishery with very few large pike
4) after 8 years from the initial regulation change, pike numbers again decreased and quality increased likely due to reductions in stocking rates
5) the reduction in growth rates may be a reflection of loss of preferred size prey items
6) Northern pike prefer adequate size fusiform shaped prey items for good growth
7) The study showed a decline/collapse in yellow perch following increased numbers of northern pike
8) Loss of these prey fishes would likely have adverse affects on both northern pike
growth and size structure

To me, we are seeing a lot of similar things at Yuba. Where the difference lies is the types of regulations and the recruitment. In the study above, pike had excellent spawning and juvenile habitat that allowed for sufficient recruitment along with additional fish being stocked. Since cutting out the stocking of fish at Yuba is not an applicable option, how do we reduce fish numbers like the above example to keep quality and growth rates up?
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[wormandbobber]

[quote Blackellunge]what we need is a balance of many year classes of Northern's inhabiting the lake, not just a few monsters patrolling the abyss!. [/quote]

Absolutely! I totally agree with this...BUT, that is much easier said than done. In our utah bathtubs, we are often left dealing with what mother nature gives us in terms of water. Balancing harvest and recruitment is the whole trick. How do you maintain that balance when harvest and recruitment are not consistent? Both rise and fall depending on the cards mother nature deals us.

At first, it seems that a stocking program would/could be the answer. But, looking at the study I referenced earlier, it seems obvious that stocking a whole bunch of pike isn't going to increase pike numbers when those small pike don't have anywhere to hide from large pike. And, stocking prey (as Utah has done with perch) would have to be a continual thing that is done multiple times throughout the summer and times when carp are not available to small fish as a food source.

So, again, what do you do to balance the populations? To me, about the only thing fishery managers can do is adjust harvest regulations...
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