Forum Index > Public Lands Stewardship > Overfishing? How many fish can be taken out of small lakes
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Jamin Smitchger
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:42 am 
1. How many fish can be taken out of small alpine lakes that are in danger of being overfished? 2. What is the carrying capacity of small alpine lakes is? How many fish per acre, etc. 3. What is the smallest alpine lake you have ever caught a fish in? (Alpine = 3000 and above) 4. What is the shallowest alpine lake you have ever seen or caught a fish in? smile.gif

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Allison
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:49 am 
4. 1 foot

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Odonata
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 10:31 am 
Some of these are not easy to answer. For question #1, "overfished" all depends on the lake health. For me an overfished lake is a healthy one (supports good size fish) with no fish in it. State rules still apply to the high lakes for maximum catch. #2 varies quite a bit because of fishing pressure and lake fertility. The density numbers are typically way lower than they were 20 or 30 years a go. Think of #'s in the mid to low teens per acre. Gee, questions 3 and 4 are kinda private. I usually wait at least until we are at the holding hands phase to get that intimate. I guess I could say smaller than you think and shallower than you think.

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Wazzuhiker
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 11:52 am 
How do fish get into alpine lakes that are cutoff from a main waterway by a waterfall?

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Odonata
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 11:55 am 
Intelligent Design

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Wazzuhiker
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:05 pm 
These lakes that are cut off must be stocked, if they are then overfishing wouldnt be an issue.

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Lagerman
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:22 pm 
I don't take fish out of Lakes. We have a decent stocking program(Could use alittle better work) that keeps a decent supply in the stocked lakes. The whole idea of taking natural fish and over fishing are thrown out in these. We all have a responsibilty to ensure that our childern have good fishing too. That all falls down to good fishing practices. While I don't agree with all the rules and regulations, common sense should be always used. Fishing depth doesn't really matter, unless your snagging a run or something up the river. Do alittle reading on the natural fish, and the planted fish. Check for planted lakes, if you plan on eating them. I don't eat hardly any of my fish(close to none anymore, although I do give some salmon/steelhead etc etc away) and I always have a blast fishing. Catch and Release is a practice that I go by most of the time. I see people dragging out trout etc etc, and it pisses me off, cause you know its going in there freezer until it comes time to clean it out, then they chunk it. Just take your dinner for camp, and enjoy it after a long day of catch and release.

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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:57 pm 
I was just pullin yer leg there Wazzuhiker, kinda. I apologize. Man is the Intelligent Designer in this case. The Trail Blazers stock quite a few high lakes. The back country horse folks and the state stock (air drops) high lakes too. Overpopulated lakes and lakes with healthy reproduction are not stocked. Everything is approved by the WDFW. If you are interested in more, here is another site High Lakers be sure to check out the slide show and science section. ~Cheers

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Jamin Smitchger
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 12:57 pm 
Kevin wrote:
Jamin Smitchger wrote:
1. How many fish can be taken out of small alpine lakes that are in danger of being overfished?
if it is in danger of being overfished, none. otherwise you can take more.
How can you tell if a lake is overfished? I am the kind of person who likes to eat what I catch, but I will not try to fish out a lake. In your opinion, how many fish is it safely possible to take out of a small lake? Let us just say hypothetically that you have a lake 6.5 feet deep at an elevation of 4400 feet. The lake is 200 feet long by 150 feet wide. How many fish can live in a lake like that? How many do you think could be taken out of the lake (assuming natural reproduction) per year. smile.gif

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Tom
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 1:13 pm 
Is it possible to "fish out" a reproducing lake? From what I've seen, I don't think you can. If you could, you might be doing the lake a favor as the population might then be better controlled via planting of non-reproducing fish.

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Allison
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 1:16 pm 
Isn't that the exact reason they plant non-reporoducing fish?

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Odonata
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 1:41 pm 
I know of some attempts to fish out some overpopulated lakes. The current consensus is that it does not work. You cannot catch as fast as they can uh, procreate. I know all the fry I have met come from good families with good strong morals. I generally give them a stern talk anyway involving the evils of sex and how the afterlife will be sooo much better if they abstain. angel.gif

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Jamin Smitchger
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 2:18 pm 
1. But let us say you have a lake that has a carrying capacity of 20 fish. You take out five, the next two guys take out ten, and the guy after him takes out 5. There are lakes like this which have very small reproducing populations. smile.gif 2. How deep does an alpine lake have to be to prevent being frozen solid during the winter. smile.gif 3. Odanata says
Quote:
Think of #'s in the mid to low teens per acre
So in lakes that are an acre or less (the hypothetical lake we were talking about) maybe two fish per year? smile.gif

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Tom
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 2:41 pm 
From what I'm told, size of lake is less important than the quality & quantity of the food source. In this regard, shallow is generally better than deep. I've caught large fish in shallow lakes I would have sworn would freeze solid in winter.

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Odonata
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PostMon Feb 21, 2005 3:28 pm 
Yea, what Tom said. I think I understand your question. It is hard to give a good answer because the character of high lakes varies so much. That is what makes it so fun. The only way to find out for sure is to go there. Some very small pot holes have reproducing fish. Some of those have good fish, others have small minnows. As for #'s of fish, some bodies of water are stocked with less than 20 fish total on some sort of cycle (your one acre example might fit this). In one of these, it would not take many visitors to clean out the fish. Also, since fry are planted they still need 2-3 years to get catchable. Some of those planted will not survive through predation (other trout, big bugs, winter kill, Ospreys) or other causes. I guess the days of the 20 trout stringer by the camp fire are gone. There are plenty of small good fishing lakes out there today though.
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