A real education on fish at Flaming Gorge

[Propnut69]

"with all the people that like to fish the gorge its a wonder that the gorge doesn't have a mussel problem as well."

This is something that I and a few other local fisherman,have been hounding the forest service about. All it takes is one boat with mussels to infect the gorge . The forest service needs to implement a inspection program at all the popular ramps on the gorge,from the first of may til the end of Sept. We keep hearing it a money issue with the forest service. Then that raises the question ,how much money will it take to get rid of the mussel's after they are in the gorge.I wish the forest service would take a progressive approach instead of a reactionary approach.

 

[SmokeOnTheWater]

I don't know about anyone else that frequents the Gorge but I was getting questioned everytime I went to the ramp at Lucerne last year. Not only did I have to complete a questionaire each time but on several occasions had lengthy discussions with the young biologists when I took my boat out.

I was going to take my boat to Lake Mead at the end of the month but a good friend of mine reminded me about the Quaga & Zebra Muscle problem down there. I'll do my part and leave my boat at home rather than taking any risk at transporting a hitchhiker to our home fisheries.

Any of you out there from infested waters, please do everyone a favor and have you boat, motor, livewells, bilge and trailer professionally cleaned!

 

[Kokanee Killer]

great advice sotw we have a zebra mussel problem here back east and we do not need those mussels filtering all the plankton, then what,,,, no kokes.

 

[FISH]

if all you koke heads want to help out on the ling do it anchor up off a rocky point and do your part to get rid of them you can catch them all yr at fg and thay are great on the table its not hard and could pass a night in a hurry do your part kill'em all i like the dollor a burbot lol i would be set.ash

 

[Kokaholic]

I figure you would have a couple grand in your pocket right now at that rate Ash. LMAO

 

[Ryno]

the bottom line is once you introduce something its going to be very hard to get rid of it. just like the mussel problem showing up in lakes its the careless acts of others. with all the people that like to fish the gorge its a wonder that the gorge dosent have a mussel problem as well.

You're exactly right. Species that are new to an ecosystem, tend to overexploit some resource, hence the "burbot-boom" we're seeing right now. This is the funny part though. If you read about burbot where they are native, their populations are struggling in a lot of those places. The theories all come back with the same common denominators, overfishing and dams. In Idaho's Kootenai River, the populations are so low, they are trying to raise burbot in hatcheries (crazy, huh?).

I strongly believe, fishing pressure and intense harvest will limit burbot production in the Gorge. Last winter, the catch rates dropped like a rock at Lost Dog after about a month of ice. I like to think it was because of all the pressure it was receiving. The "Burbot Bash" tally was around 275 burbot for 2-nights of fishing, and that's just what was reported. Anglers fishing that area the weekends after, complained about not catching any burbot. Unfortunate for them, but that's a good thing! I think that's a prime example of fishing/harvest having a localized impact. It's a small dent on the reservoir population as a whole, but a huge dent for the Lost Dog area.

With guys like "Fish" and his family and friends out there ripping in 50-100 of these things in a night, we'll hopefully maintain the burbot population at a manageable level. I think we could really help the situation by fishing the burbot in areas that correspond with intense kokanee spawning, including Holmes Crossing and Wild Horse. If you can reduce burbot numbers in those areas (hopefully with the success seen at Lost Dog), you're removing potential kokanee egg, fry, and juvenile predation.

Every bit helps. One 18-inch female burbot produces a million eggs, so it does make a difference. Unfortunately, like you said, you'll never totally rid the lake of them. Thanks, Ryno