perch at blue mesa 9/21/06

[perchman7]

whats your opinion of perch in bluemesa. do you think there doing more harm than good. i for one am happy to see them in there.

[Lakerhunter]

If you can find them they are nice sized.I feel they are a good food source for the Lakers. The people in the green trucks would disagree with me though.

[perchman7]

i to think they are a good food source for lakers

[BassMaster]

Originally Posted by Lakerhunter

If you can find them they are nice sized.

Last time I was up there, I sall hundreds of them up at the end of the West Elk Creek Arm. And they were all 3-5 inchers.

[ePiC]

Originally Posted by BassMaster

Last time I was up there, I sall hundreds of them up at the end of the West Elk Creek Arm. And they were all 3-5 inchers.

Yeah there are millions that hang out at the marinas all 3-5 inches

[Randy Hampton DOW]

Originally Posted by Lakerhunter

If you can find them they are nice sized.I feel they are a good food source for the Lakers. The people in the green trucks would disagree with me though.

What does the U.S. Forest Service have to do with this?

[brown-time]

I fished for them, couldn't find anything over 6" out of several areas. The inlet area seems especially loaded and small. We caught several to 12" this year from the boat in bays about 10 FOW, these were the exceptions. Over-populated fish don't do any fishery much good, IMO. We'll see shortly what the bigger browns are eating and what their condition is if eating perch. Young kokanee predation(by perch) may harm the whole koke population in a few years causing a crackdown on lakers. I don't think anyone knows for sure right now.

[ePiC]

If you guys are in the area there is usually a perch ice fishing tournament or two on the mesa... with no bag limit for you perch eaters this could stock you up.

[IceInTheVeins]

Perch do not offer the caloric value of a kokanee. It takes about 3 - 4 perch to equal the nutritional value one koke offers a big trout. This being said, the sheer abundance of perch as a forage could just mean the predators would have to eat a few extra perch.
Of course if the perch cause a decline in the kokanee populations, which they well could, we know that Patty, Danny, and Shermmy will automatically blame the lake trout and call for no bag limits. Remeber they were even contemplating an actual lake trout removal program at the March roundtable? We can't allow that.
Perch COULD be a good forage for Blue's big trout, or they could overpopulate so bad they make it impossible for any fish to sustain themselves. It could be good, or bad. It's a risk I would have prefered not to take though.

[DonInDenver]

Originally Posted by IceInTheVeins

Perch do not offer the caloric value of a kokanee. ....It's a risk I would have prefered not to take though.

I'm with Ice on this one. Bucket biologists - Shoot to kill!