Illegal fish plant — Walleye may wreak havoc in reservoir
The prospects of that find are not good. Within a few years, what has been a popular and productive fishery could be destroyed. Walleye do not belong, nor can they coexist with the fish — mainly trout, bluegill and bass — already there.
The walleye in Red Fleet were put there illegally. That is, someone transported them to Red Fleet from another reservoir.
Worse still, walleye from Red Fleet could escape to other waters, such as nearby Steinaker, another popular family fishery.
"These are valuable waters to us," said Johnson, regional aquatics biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Recourses. "All (the walleye will do) is cause problems."
Six years ago, during gillnet operations, Johnson pulled two walleye from the nets. They were older fish and both were male. That same year a fisherman caught and turned in a walleye of the same senior age class, also a male.
"I suspect the fish we pulled out two weeks ago were from the original plant, but I can't be sure. Then again, it's possible they were put in last year or the year before and spawned."
Two of the latest finds were older fish, possibly four years old. The other 20 were young, around a quarter of a pound, possibly between 1-plus and 2 years old, "and the alarming thing is it's evident they've really taken off."
To try to minimize damage, the DWR has implemented emergency regulations that require all walleye, no matter the size, to be kept and killed. Also, there is no limit on the number of walleye that can be caught in Red Fleet.
The problem with walleye is that they are efficient predators that will eat any fish — and lots of them.
And, said Johnson, there are plenty of fish in Red Fleet to eat.
"There is currently a large number of largemouth bass that have been around for a long time. We have a lot of years invested in these fish — 8 or 9 years. We also have bluegill and a good rainbow fishery that is our bread and butter. To top it all off, we have some big brown (trout), up to 15 pounds," said Johnson.
"We have no way of replacing those mature bass or browns. Rainbows we can always put back in. And, because Red Fleet is not a particularly productive reservoir, it's likely these populations will crash."
What is likely to happen is a cycle will begin where the walleye will eat most of the fish in Red Fleet, get big and fat and then, when the food is gone, die. Biologists will then try to bring back the reservoir as a family fishery, but when numbers start to increase, any walleye that survived will begin the eating cycle again.
Recent comments
Thanks for the feedback about Deer Creek, rblack. What about Utah...
Steve | June 13, 2008 at 2:53 p.m.
In Montana (yes, there really are people here)we have a similar problem...
Here in Montana | June 12, 2008 at 7:26 p.m.
Maybe the simple answer is to just close off each reservoir and lake...
Paul | June 12, 2008 at 5:37 p.m.
