oahe stocking.

[suntracker]

had some smelt puked up in the livewell yesterday was fishing mobridge and talked to some fishing akaska and they had the same thing so maybe a few left or they just ate the last few. With the winter we had last year and high water coming from shadehill i believe more than a few shad made it in here from the grand so maybe they can be the saving grace on top of the stocked ones. caught quite a few shad in the nets this spring seeing if there were any smelt in the area.

[brentfrank]

I fished out of Cow Creek yesterday and we did catch some skinny fish. We only kept 7 that were deep hooked and released everything else.

The bigger fish didn't seem to be affected as much as the fish under 17". There are ALOT of fish coming out of Oahe right now as fishing is excellent. I did see alot of skinny fish being cleaned as I waited my turn at cleaning station.

Time will tell.

[Traxion]

People seem to be getting hung up on this 1800 shad and say it is insignificant. Remember, the goal here is for these shad to spawn and produce thousands upon thousands of offspring. The number that has been quoted is 300,000 per female. So, if all were females, you would end up with 540 million offspring. Now obviously the #'s aren't going to be that, but still I think it's far from a "drop in the bucket" like most are saying. And, it's bigger picture, if some of those offspring survive the winter we'll have more fish next year too. Think beyond the blinders for a minute or two.

It's been a proactive move by the GFP which I fully appreciate. Anything will help, I am glad they are making an effort.

In my fishing, mostly the northern 1/2 of the reservoir, small fish are everywhere. Those 12-14" fish aren't chunky yet I would not call them skinny. The mid size fish are about average, with some of the large fish looking good and others a bit undersize. But I agree, probably a bit too early to tell. I honestly will say the fish we caught through the ice are very similar to the fish we are catching this spring and early summer, little difference in size. Late summer to early fall will tell more in my opinion.

[sdhusker]

What I'd like to know is what happened to all the young perch that were around in 2010? In the Moreau River/Swan Creek area, at a minimum, you couldn't hardly find 15-20 FOW that didn't have some perch nibbling on your crawlers that summer. The way those things reproduce, and with the high water, I would think they would have provided a good food source for a few years.

Maybe my experience was anecdotal and I'm overestimating the impact. Or, maybe all of those 4-6" perch and their offspring have already been digested by walleye and pike.

[maxxum]

I was near the south end of Oahe on Saturday and Sunday the smaller fish <14 inches are skinny the fish over 15 seem to be growing and are healthy. We managed to nice overs and 10 unders Saturday.

[bullpintail2424]

Originally Posted by sdhusker

What I'd like to know is what happened to all the young perch that were around in 2010? In the Moreau River/Swan Creek area, at a minimum, you couldn't hardly find 15-20 FOW that didn't have some perch nibbling on your crawlers that summer. The way those things reproduce, and with the high water, I would think they would have provided a good food source for a few years.

Maybe my experience was anecdotal and I'm overestimating the impact. Or, maybe all of those 4-6" perch and their offspring have already been digested by walleye and pike.

I found two half digested perch in the live well this past weekend. South of Whitlock. We managed to catch nice fish Saturday but found a bunch of 10-14 inchers on Sunday, of which 6 had hooks in their mouth/gut that I could see. I cut 7 hooks off myself. In my mind it's an indication of how agressive these small fish are and what the fishing pressure is like - catching previously caught fish with now more than one swalled hook in their gut at the end of June. I can't imagine they have a high survival rate at that point, but I hope for the best. I will again plug the SD GFP website to all who seem unclear as to actual happenings and prey fish situations in Ohae. The gizzard shad is a great short term fix to replace the Rainbow Smelt, they just lack the fat content the RS had/have. I hope for another mild winter with high water levels to avoid the perfect storm.

[bullpintail2424]

Originally Posted by Traxion

People seem to be getting hung up on this 1800 shad and say it is insignificant. Remember, the goal here is for these shad to spawn and produce thousands upon thousands of offspring. The number that has been quoted is 300,000 per female. So, if all were females, you would end up with 540 million offspring. Now obviously the #'s aren't going to be that, but still I think it's far from a "drop in the bucket" like most are saying. And, it's bigger picture, if some of those offspring survive the winter we'll have more fish next year too. Think beyond the blinders for a minute or two.

It's been a proactive move by the GFP which I fully appreciate. Anything will help, I am glad they are making an effort.

In my fishing, mostly the northern 1/2 of the reservoir, small fish are everywhere. Those 12-14" fish aren't chunky yet I would not call them skinny. The mid size fish are about average, with some of the large fish looking good and others a bit undersize. But I agree, probably a bit too early to tell. I honestly will say the fish we caught through the ice are very similar to the fish we are catching this spring and early summer, little difference in size. Late summer to early fall will tell more in my opinion.

I agree. The rainbow smelt have high fat content which is why we were able to find those "footballs" in previous years with high RS reproduction. But now those are missing from the system (with exception to remaining 10-15% GFP estimates) and the fish appear to be resorting to perch/shad/drum - which don't have the high fat content the RS did. I do trust the GF&P will do what they can...the revenue is too high to risk a downturn of the fishery. Unfortunatly, they have a waiting period to make their determination while gathering further data of how to act going forward...if act at all...