Size vs Quantity?

[Phil Lilley]

The creel study started either the first of the year or before but it's issued by MDC when they deem it necessary to changes things up.  It is a key ingredient to managing any fishery -- to find out what the angler wants from the fishery and see if they can acheive it.  Or it could be to justify a change they see needs to occur.  I think it may be the latter in this case.

The hatcheries, mainly Shepherd, has had a lot of issues with water quality lately.  Warm water, low DO.  Then there's the other hatcheries and flooding.  Remember it takes about 18 months to grow a trout to stocking size under good conditions. 

The last creel survey showed anglers would substitute bigger for less trout and the present one is saying the same.

I don't know what they have exactly in mind but I'm sure one thing is stock less rainbows.

Oh yea- the survey is taken by one or two MDC people from a boat on the lake asking boaters and people fishing from docks.  They talk to ALOT of people, believe me.  I don't know how many days they're on the water but it's at least 3-4 may be 5 a week and they work a 8 hour shift.  They ask questions and measure caught trout.  It's pretty involved.

The trophy area on Taney has worked very well in my opnion.  It's a 5 mile section that starts at the dam- blocked at one end.  Two things makes it work - 5 miles and blocked at one end. One other good thing is I think it has the best food base for trout... lots of gravel/mud for bugs and big rocks for sculpins.

One aspect of the trophy area that's interesting - because of the bait restriction, a vast majority of anglers do not go up and fish it.  The majority of anglers who stay here are bait fishermen -- they like to drift with bait or sit and tight line with bait.  Here's my other observation - anglers who fly fish or use artifical lures tend to be more catch and release.  So what you see is a big majority of anglers that fish the trophy area don't keep any trout. 

That trophy area was setup with carrying capacity in mind.  MDC didn't want c&r because the trout would tend to overpopulate the area and there woudn't be good growth rates, thus the keep under 12 inch rainbow.  I'm sure if that part of it has worked but the plan as worked well enough to see good results so far.  BUT could it be better if they tweaked the rules?

One question I have is the food base.  I'd like to see some sort of study on the food base up there.  They tried to take samples of scuds back in the 80's by taking a concrete ring and setting on the bottom of the lake in gravel and taking samples from that ring every so often.  I'm not sure if that worked... but you can still see a ring or two up by Lookout Island.

Kinda rambling on... throwing some things out there for discussion.

[Trout Addict]

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[tjm]

How deep and wide is that 5 mile area? Any of it wadable?

[Phil Lilley]

3 hours ago, tjm said:

How deep and wide is that 5 mile area? Any of it wadable?

It varies of course.  Some places you can walk across but most are like a normal river with a shallow flat side and a deep channel.  Deep - 6-12 feet deep.  The first mile - from the dam to a public boat ramp - is all easy access and public.  The upper 2 miles can be accessed and waded but you have to walk down from the ramp.  The rest is accessed by boat and can be waded (anchor boat, get out and wade).  When I say waded, that's with no generation, otherwise, it depends on hoow much generation.

[MoCarp]

everything starts with food..low DO events are killer.....what would it take to have better DO?  its been a few years but Crawford Co lake in Kansas near the Farlington fish hatchery has a huge aeration apparatus that pumps O2 deep in the lake, they did that for the stripers they keep in that lake from what I understand lots of brood stock for the hatchery comes from that lake...always wonder how they could do that for taney...

more O2 would allow less fish kill situations, and that means trout forage as well, less trout but bigger trout is a good thing IMHO but I also think another reduction in limit perhaps......the MDC does try and get the pulse of the public..but I think more to see if they will catch grief from something they are moving forward with....a reduction in fish packed in the runs means they need less O2  thats a given...better to insulate problems of low O2 events AND at the same time give anglers what they want...BIGGER TROUT..thats a win win

[Phil Lilley]

Low DO caused by stratification is every tailwater's nightmare.  We're in good company.  There have been some remedies, but all dams/lakes are different and it would take a special fix for us - that and an act of congress and lots and lots of money.

[Phil Lilley]

I'm sure MDC will figure it out.  I seriously doubt if they lower the limit from 4... Arkansas, our competitor, is at 6.  I don't think Missouri wants to drop theirs to 3!

[Haris122]

As far as the DO problems go, do less but bigger trout actually mean less DO consumption overall, or do they use up a comparable amount of DO as a similar biomass of them but distributed over a greater number of trout.

[Trout Addict]

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[Trout Addict]

On 12/10/2017 at 8:10 AM, Haris122 said: