killing off lakes,why?

[Shad_Eating_Grin]

Why can the state not hire 1 single technician? $50K isnt available for this, wow. However they will dish out thousands of dollars a year putting a bounty on pikeminnow? Or is that money coming from elsewhere.

That money is coming from elsewhere. The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)--a federal (not state) agency.

[kutthroatkilla]

We're always looking for volunteers as well. I work in Ephrata on the Region Two Warmwater Team. We have work to do this spring but unfortunately due to budget shortfalls we are unable to hire a technician. If anyone in the area would like to come out and see what it is all about feel free to give me a call.

509-745-4624 ext 27
509-750-8165 work cell

Good Fishing!!

Mike Schmuck
Fisheries Biologist
WDFW Region Two

Good FYI Mike S and good to have you on board at Washingtonlakes.com! You bring a great amount of technical knowledge to many different species...Seems like budget shortfalls are the name of the game in many industries right now. I hope your job is secure. Volunteers would be sweet! KTK

[ruthven78]

well I'd thought about volunteering in the region 1 area many times, unfortunately between work and family, there is little time to even fish, so my volunteerism is spotty at best, usually it involves taking garbages with me when I got fishing and cleaning up the around around where I fished to leave it cleaner than I found it.

great input Mike S!

[fishnislife]

Great info. Mike Schmuck. Glad your here to share valuable insight.

Hey Yellow Bear, just so you know juggalo has been around here awhile. He just doesn't post that much. I don't know why so maybe we should both get on him about that.




fishnislife

[panfisher]

sure hope to have more input from you mike, the warmwater enhencement program is a start, to hopefully more opportunities for everyone. <')//<

[Anglinarcher]

Wow this topic is a very intresting one but I can tell you from personal experience growing up in warm water country in the mid-west that the predator fish not only limit the action on the water but destroy the quality of the water as well. I like the idea of killing off a lake and growing it from scratch. I have absolutley no idea of whats involved with the process of deciding which lake and when but it sounds like a good idea to keep the right fish thriving. As far as taste goes that is just personal opinion but I do think trout is a little bit of a wild/fish taste compared to others.

Sorry dude, but did you mean to say what I think you said, "the predator fish not only limit the action on the water but destroy the quality of the water as well"?

I have never seen any "predator" fish do anything like limit action or destroy water quality, and I'm no spring chicken and have fished in most states west of the muddy Mississippi. I often help fisheries departments in Montana, Idaho, and Washington, and I have never heard them say anything like that either.

I HAVE seen non-predator fish, like carp, destroy water quality. In fact, they will mess up a lake or river so bad that desirable species decline in size and population.

Each state has it's own criteria for what calls for a fish rehabilitation. In Washington, I THINK it is politics. Still, talking about Sprague Lake, if they would just come out and be honest and tell us the truth, that Walleye were not a problem but the size and quantity of Carp were, then I would be a little less hostile toward them.

[Anglinarcher]

[quote="Mike Schmuck"]Typically a lake is "rehabbed" if it is a trout lake and trout growth and/or survival has been impacted negatively by introduced species (e.g. yellow perch, bass, pumpkinseed, etc). Trout fishing is the #1 fishery in the state of Washington in terms of dollars spent]

Mike, I don't mean to rain on your parade, and I know you must speak the "company line", but really, "There are public discussion prior to rehabs. We listen to everyone's concerns and attempt to alleviate those concerns"? You have already made up your minds at least two years in advance and all you do is hold public meetings to appease us.

I also question the knowledge of your state "technicians". I was on Elokia last year when two of your finest came out with nets to catch "crappie fry". It was a joke. They cruised around the center of the lake when I offered to show them where they were at, located deep in the dollar pads around the edge. I guess that if you don't have the right color shirt on, with the right patches, you don't know a thing.

We haven't even got into the issue with Sprague lake yet, but why did they allow fishermen to observe the kill in the small lakes below Sprague, but stopped people at Sprague? Was it that we did not buy the "story line" that the Walleye were all at the center and that they "sank" instead of floating like all other fish, including walleye, did down stream? Of course, the math error they claimed to have made, forcing them to lower the projections on the number of Walleye, raises a red flag as well.

I could go on and on about this, so perhaps we should take this off line. PM me if you want to talk, but give me a few days to cool off first.

[YellowBear]

I would be interested to hear a reply about Sprague myself.
I would also like to know, what size will the Bass Broodstock be and how many they are going to plant in Sprague.

[Mike Schmuck]

Crappie fry sampling is being done in spring on certain lakes that are known crappie waters. We are developing protocols for sampling fry in the spring using nets similar to those used to collect zooplankton. This is refered to as index netting. A site is selected and is sampled year after year. This has a certain bias but the bias will be the same from year to year since you are sampling the same area and at the same depth. We can not simply go to the place the has the most crappie fry from year to year, or a place where an angler knows there are a lot of fry. This would not give us comparable results and would be extremely biased. You couldn't say whether the change in abundance from year to year was due to an actual change in the population or was due to sampling a different spot.

Crappie fry abundance will then be correlted with abundance of age two crappie collected in fyke nets two years later. The idea is to come up with a model that will help us predict weak year classes so that we can stock crappie where they are needed.

We headquartered out of the Four Seasons resort when we rehabbed Sprague. This is private property and the decision to not allow people in was made by the property owners. We used this site because it offered overnight security. In addition, a rehab is a very labor intensive process. It is not the time to be dealing with people who want to discuss the whys and hows of the rehab. If we allowed that we wouldn't get any work done. the time for discussion was prior to the rehab. There was plenty of time to make your feelings known.

Sprague was rehabbed, in part, to deal with the over abundance of carp and tench. We also had a large walleye population that was underutilized. They were there in high numbers but folks weren't fishing and Sprague had very little use. This equates to few dollars brought into the area which isn't good for anyone. Yes there were a lot of walleye and A LOT of small crappie. Fish float or sink based on where they are in the water column when they die. You can not make an accurate prediction of population size from fish floating after a rehab.

Sprague is now being stocked with bluegill, crappie, and bass (so far) as are the other lakes (Cow, Fennel, Hallon). There were trout stocked for an intermediate fishery until the warmwater species take over. The bass range between 8-15 inches. We have taken bass from Ephrata Lake and Leader Lake. We stocked close to 6500 bluegill, of which about 5% were mature. These came from Whitestone Lake (which is overrun with small bluegill). The crappie came from Leader Lake as well.

If anyone wants to talk to me about any warmwater fish management questions feel free to call my work cell phone. 509-750-8165. I may not be able to answer every question you have but I will try.

Mike

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

Mike has also been involved with walleye studies on Moses Lake and the Potholes.

[Anglinarcher]

Crappie fry sampling is being done in spring on certain lakes that are known crappie waters. We are developing protocols for sampling fry in the spring using nets similar to those used to collect zooplankton. This is refered to as index netting. A site is selected and is sampled year after year. This has a certain bias but the bias will be the same from year to year since you are sampling the same area and at the same depth. We can not simply go to the place the has the most crappie fry from year to year, or a place where an angler knows there are a lot of fry. This would not give us comparable results and would be extremely biased. You couldn't say whether the change in abundance from year to year was due to an actual change in the population or was due to sampling a different spot.

Crappie fry abundance will then be correlted with abundance of age two crappie collected in fyke nets two years later. The idea is to come up with a model that will help us predict weak year classes so that we can stock crappie where they are needed.

We headquartered out of the Four Seasons resort when we rehabbed Sprague. This is private property and the decision to not allow people in was made by the property owners. We used this site because it offered overnight security. In addition, a rehab is a very labor intensive process. It is not the time to be dealing with people who want to discuss the whys and hows of the rehab. If we allowed that we wouldn't get any work done. the time for discussion was prior to the rehab. There was plenty of time to make your feelings known.

Sprague was rehabbed, in part, to deal with the over abundance of carp and tench. We also had a large walleye population that was underutilized. They were there in high numbers but folks weren't fishing and Sprague had very little use. This equates to few dollars brought into the area which isn't good for anyone. Yes there were a lot of walleye and A LOT of small crappie. Fish float or sink based on where they are in the water column when they die. You can not make an accurate prediction of population size from fish floating after a rehab.

Sprague is now being stocked with bluegill, crappie, and bass (so far) as are the other lakes (Cow, Fennel, Hallon). There were trout stocked for an intermediate fishery until the warmwater species take over. The bass range between 8-15 inches. We have taken bass from Ephrata Lake and Leader Lake. We stocked close to 6500 bluegill, of which about 5% were mature. These came from Whitestone Lake (which is overrun with small bluegill). The crappie came from Leader Lake as well.

If anyone wants to talk to me about any warmwater fish management questions feel free to call my work cell phone. 509-750-8165. I may not be able to answer every question you have but I will try.

Mike

We can not simply go to the place the has the most crappie fry from year to year, or a place where an angler knows there are a lot of fry. This would not give us comparable results and would be extremely biased. You couldn't say whether the change in abundance from year to year was due to an actual change in the population or was due to sampling a different spot.

Very true, but sampling the population of Yellow Belly Marmots at the South Pole, and using it as a predictor of Marmot population increase or decrease world wide doesn't work either. If you don't sample in the habitat that the Crappie utilize, than you might as well sample a different lake and use it as a predictor. No, that is not a suggestion!

We headquartered out of the Four Seasons resort when we rehabbed Sprague. This is private property and the decision to not allow people in was made by the property owners. We used this site because it offered overnight security. In addition, a rehab is a very labor intensive process. It is not the time to be dealing with people who want to discuss the whys and hows of the rehab. If we allowed that we wouldn't get any work done. the time for discussion was prior to the rehab. There was plenty of time to make your feelings known.

You also closed off the State access, not even near the Four Seasons resort, and you closed it off for many days after the kill was complete. I can accept your concerns about private property and security and even people interference, but you stepped over the line when you suggested these were the only reasons. You simply did not want us to see what was actually there after the kill.

Mike, I'm sorry for taking you to task for something was not your call, but I, and most of us smell a rat. A little honesty from your superiors would go a very long way.

[Mike Schmuck]

I only have a minute but here goes:

CRAPPIE
We collect plenty of crappie fry in pelagic habitats. Once crappie emerge (swim up fry) they go pelagic (deep water habitat). This is why larval crappie sampling takes place in these habitats and not along the shoreline in weed beds. If you can tell me of another statistically valid sampling protocol for sampling larval crappie please let me know.

SPRAGUE
People used to be able to collect dead fish after a rehab. Now, due to stricter rules we cannot allow the public to pick up dead fish to consume. It had nothing to do with not wanting people to see the number of dead fish along the shore. You may not believe me but I assure you there was no conspiracy to hide anything. This is why the public areas were closed off as well. I spent the week traveling from Ritzville to the Four Seasons and never made it over to the public access site.

There was no one denying the abundance of walleye, crappie and various other species in Sprague Lake. Our only management tool (thus far) for managing walleye is harvest. We had little harvest on walleye in Sprague and the fishery was stagnant. The loss in revenue to the area in terms of angler dollars needed to be dealt with. A rehab, while unpopular, is the most effective quick remedy for starting over with a fishery.

[YellowBear]

First off, I would like to thank you Mike for signing up with this site.


Can you tell me your thoughts on the condition of our panfish.

Something else I just don't understand, as the Sprague lake Walleye experiment was so successful, why Walleyes were not restocked without the Smallmouth?


Also, there have been some calls made to the numbers you posted for help on spring projects but we have not heard back from anyone.
Did you find the help needed?

[Bruce Nelson]

Juggalo,

I've lived in Washington all of my life, 53 years. As a kid growing up in the Seattle area, there were traditional trout lakes such as Pine, Langlois, Morton, Desire, and Margaret which WDFW tried to keep that way. The bass fishermen were allowed Sawyer, Killarney, Washington, Sammamish. But that wasn't good enough for Johnny Bass Seed, whose accent betrays him as someone who's not from here. Johnny Bass Seed had to put his fish in every lake.

Several years ago when my son was about twelve, we went trout fishing at Armstrong Lake, which had always been good for trout fishing. It wasn't so good that day for trout, so we tied on some Rapalas and caught a few pan sized bass, which we kept. Upon arrival at the boat launch we were verbally accosted by some guy with a southern accent who was upset that we kept these illegally planted bass. I told him if we weren't breaking any laws he should mind his own business. This exchange upset my son.

I would never dream of keeping a bass in any of the bass fishing Meccas such as Silver, Banks, or Potholes, but if I catch any in my favorite trout lakes, they will be filleted and released into hot oil.

Bruce Nelson

[fish4brains]

Sprague was rehabbed, in part, to deal with the over abundance of carp and tench. We also had a large walleye population that was underutilized. They were there in high numbers but folks weren't fishing and Sprague had very little use. This equates to few dollars brought into the area which isn't good for anyone.
Mike

People weren't fishing because it is a very ugly lake.This did not bother me 'cause I am there to catch fish and not ogle at the scenery. The wind can come up unexpected and created huge waves and wreaked havoc on campers. This is why it was under fished. The Walleye in there had plenty of food to eat so catching them to the average worm and bobber fisherman was tough to say the least, but to a decent dedicated fisherman, you could really punish the walleye in there. I do not know the history of that lake but it seems to me that in the summer months when the water temps reach the upper 70's and low 80's the trout will find it hard to sustain. The carp problem could have been helped by holding bowfishing tounaments where teams could easily shoot over 1000 lbs a day. Multiply that by 50-60 teams and bam, problem helped.Not solved just helped.

On another note, what was done, if anything can be, to resolve the MASSIVE algae bloom?

[produce2troutcat]

Some lakes in this state provide the proper enviroment for warmwater species ,but not all. When these lakes get planted by people with their own agenda they end up costing all residents of this state.Let the state do the job they are paid to do.I personally get tired of going to the trout lakes that should stay that way and find out some DS put in there favorite fish because they think they will prosper.This is the same mentality of people who dump their tropical fish in a lake and expect them to survive.Case in point Chopaka Lake in Okanogan Co.This lake is at over 3000 ft in elevation on the side of a mountain over 7000 ft.Quite a few years ago some mental midget thought that smallmouth bass would flourish there.Well they did survive but due to the wrong enviroment to live they never grew more than 15 in. Over the years since this stupidity occured the quality of trout fishing declined even as the bass being caught became shoreside fertilizer.Now for those of you who are not familier with Chopaka Lk, This lake was what was classified as a Blue Ribbon Flyfishing lake .People traveled from all over to fish for these trout that reached huge size ( my best was over 6 lbs and I had many occasions where my 8lb leader would just snap on strikes).Now how does 15 in bass ever compare to trout of many pounds( only if you like catching minnows ).Well ,last fall they finally killed off this lake to get rid of the bass which were never suited to properly grow there.What was lost were the cutthroat that would put kutthroatkilla's Lk WA fish to shame and rainbows that had shoulders and looked like trout instead of football shaped triploids,economic impact on the local community due to less people traveling to the area to fish,and of course the money our state had to spend to do this.If you want to be a bucket biologist than go get a proper education otherwise let the people we pay to do the job do their job. Every species has its own place in the proper enviroment and its our job as fisherpeople to keep it that way and to use our knowledge on where to target the fish we like to fish for,not create our own pond.
This lake was one of my favorite trout lakes to visit and I will still continue to go there even knowing it is going to be a long time before it becomes a Blue Ribbon lake again.Maybe we should kill off Silver Lake in Cowlitz Co because the bluegill should be the dominant species there(JK).
Anyways ,just to let you know I target all species but I go to where they are suited to survive, so I do support the need to kill off lakes when appropiate, it just pisses me off when other people think that they want to make a lake their own pond.
Mike

[YellowBear]

It seems that bucket biology is always in the minds of some anglers.
I do not agree with the practice but I do have a question about it.

Why is it so successful?
When the WDFW plants fish, they use thousands of them and at times still fail.
A bucket only holds so many fish but yet they are blamed most of the time. .

As the population increases and the price of gas go's out of site I feel that this practice will only increase.

[Bruce Nelson]

A bucket only holds so many fish but yet they are blamed most of the time. .

This is true, but a female yellow perch can produce 10,000 to 40,000 eggs and a crappie 20,000 to 60,000 eggs. Absent heavy fishing pressure or effective predators, you get a lake filled with 5 inch perch and 4 inch pumpkinseeds in a hurry. How exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bruce Nelson

[chironomid_guy]

I would like to thank Mike as well for his insight and clarification as well. I feel the WSFW guys are doing a great job, dispite funding cuts. Tight lines guys

Cheers The Chironomid Guy

[ruthven78]

Thanks Mike for your incites into the rehab of Sprague Lake. Some people dont understand it takes more than what they know to rehab a lake and that decisions are made based on information they do not have, and possibly may not understand or or be willing to accept.