perch at blue mesa 9/21/06 - Page 6

jhodgie · #51 03-08-2010, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cochise

freaked me out seeing a thread started by Perchman7

i was trying to find his thread with the 34lb laker. gave up after i found what BT wrote on this one.

perchman · #52 03-08-2010, 06:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dukman

K

brown-time · #53 03-08-2010, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhodgie

i was trying to find his thread with the 34lb laker. gave up after i found what BT wrote on this one.

A few years later we now know a few more things. Like the over-population of 16-18" lakers and 13-15" browns was caused by this same perch population explosion, just look in their stomachs. A brand new plentiful forage caused this explosion by increasing the survivability of the fish to a fish eating size, but then they stunt because there's too many and rarely get much bigger, that's why there's not near the number of bigger lakers today.

And bigger browns. (In 96-99 we caught a 5# brown or three every trip and a least a 10# in the group every year. Not now.) The over-population exists on the east half of the lake, not the west end where all the bigger lakers are. Just ice fish or open water fish for lakers on the east half and see how many little lakers and medium browns you catch compared to the west end. Ya think all those koke fry can run the gauntlet from Roaring Judy with all the browns in the river, then the perch near the bridge, then the bunches of small lakers and browns to ever survive in the rest of the lake?? Not likely. If the biologist in charge there would ever get on a damn boat and ask anybody besides the CSU study group what happens there it might get fixed. I asked him at a Montrose roundtable two years ago what strain of fall spawning rainbows they had in the inlet that were getting to 24" (with perch in their stomachs too, yes they DO eat fish) and he said, "fall spawning rainbows??" And the Park Service guy that asked him how he was counting all those kokes in Iola with all the boats around them didn't even know that it was happening!!! DS!!!!! and that doesn' stand for Dreamstream.

dukman · #54 03-08-2010, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brown-time

A few years later we now know a few more things. Like the over-population of 16-18" lakers and 13-15" browns was caused by this same perch population explosion, just look in their stomachs. A brand new plentiful forage caused this explosion by increasing the survivability of the fish to a fish eating size, but then they stunt because there's too many and rarely get much bigger, that's why there's not near the number of bigger lakers today.

And bigger browns. (In 96-99 we caught a 5# brown or three every trip and a least a 10# in the group every year. Not now.) The over-population exists on the east half of the lake, not the west end where all the bigger lakers are. Just ice fish or open water fish for lakers on the east half and see how many little lakers and medium browns you catch compared to the west end. Ya think all those koke fry can run the gauntlet from Roaring Judy with all the browns in the river, then the perch near the bridge, then the bunches of small lakers and browns to ever survive in the rest of the lake?? Not likely. If the biologist in charge there would ever get on a damn boat and ask anybody besides the CSU study group what happens there it might get fixed. I asked him at a Montrose roundtable two years ago what strain of fall spawning rainbows they had in the inlet that were getting to 24" (with perch in their stomachs too, yes they DO eat fish) and he said, "fall spawning rainbows??" And the Park Service guy that asked him how he was counting all those kokes in Iola with all the boats around them didn't even know that it was happening!!! DS!!!!! and that doesn' stand for Dreamstream.

Apparently you didn't read Pat Martinez's 2,500 page study BT.

IceInTheVeins · #55 03-09-2010, 06:32 PM

There are now TONS of small lakers on the West End.

bassboy · #56 03-09-2010, 10:28 PM

I don't know about the Macs, but I think the browns are bigger now then 15 years ago. I've caught several 4 & 5lb Browns in the last few years. It fishes different then it used to for sure, but I it's fun goin after them when they're chasing perch in a foot of water.

dukman · #57 03-09-2010, 10:35 PM

Trout don't eat fish.

brown-time · #58 03-10-2010, 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassboy

I don't know about the Macs, but I think the browns are bigger now then 15 years ago. I've caught several 4 & 5lb Browns in the last few years. It fishes different then it used to for sure, but I it's fun goin after them when they're chasing perch in a foot of water.

Oh, we've caught several that big and bigger, Bill had an easy 6 last year. But the point is we used to catch that size almost every trip and up to 30"/11#, last one of those was in 03 fishing the same water. They have definitely changed to the perch for food, but that's not as many calories as rainbows. Stocking the rainbows in there at 10" in the fall causes em to eat the perch instead of the former 4" fingerling trout. But at least the perch are a year round forage.