Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

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TheFLY
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Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by TheFLY »

Large fields and a 7 fish limit in early January each of the last three years give us the opportunity to really see what has been going on at Oroville. Some of these numbers are remarkably telling.

Notice that each of the last two years 11% of the filed blanked. Arguably it was a tiny bit harder to catch fish in 2017 than in 2018 as 24% of the field caugh 3 or fewer fish in 2017 and that number was slightly less at 22.6% in 2018.

But the weights are undoubtedly going down as you can see below. Most revealing is the median fish weighed in each event: 1.06 in 2018, 1.30 in 2017 and 1.47 in 2016.

2018 Team Event: 1/13/18
177 boats
16.17 to win, 2.31 per fish.
10.54 for top 10, 1.506 per fish.
8.65 to get a check, 1.236 per fish.
7.44 median weight. 1.063 per fish (89th place).
100 limits, 56.5%
19 teams blanked, 10.7%
40 teams caught 3 fish or less, 22.6% of the field.
Link: https://www.wildwestbasstrail.com/ca-te ... -oroville/

2017 Team Event: 1/14/17
167 boats.
14.70 to win, 2.1 lbs per fish.
12.08 for top 10, 1.726 per fish.
10.60 to get a check. 1.514 per fish.
9.11 median weight. 1.301 per fish (84th place).
94 limits, 56.3%
18 teams blanked, 10.8%
40 teams caught 3 fish or less, 24% of the field.
Link: http://www.westernbass.com/forum/post57 ... ts#p574584

2016 Team Event: 1/9/16
98 boats.
15.44 to win, 2.206 lbs per fish.
12.66 for top 10, 1.809 per fish.
10.26 median weight. 1.466 per fish (49th place).
70 limits, 71.4%
6 teams blanked, 6.1%
8 teams caught 3 fish or less, 8.2% of field.
Link: http://www.westernbass.com/forum/post55 ... le#p555874
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JoeLanghans
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by JoeLanghans »

This is due to the frequent, extreme fluctuations in lake level. Water column constantly changing, no structure, water clarity, pressure, stress etc. This lake will turn into Nacimiento in no time. Year round suspended fish that won't grow over a couple pounds. Also, too many boats. Wild West Bass Trail needs to cap the amount of boats in theirs tournaments. Unless this lake is full, it can't support a 170+ boat field. Lastly, too many tournaments and tournament trails. Looks like the greed for money is starting to affect the fisheries...
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

Where to start....ill post a more intelligible response when I can sit down. For now...everyone keep and eat a few fish. Your fisheries management depends on it.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by scott39 »

Or maybe its just January
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Pat
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Pat »

MGJR wrote:Where to start....ill post a more intelligible response when I can sit down. For now...everyone keep and eat a few fish. Your fisheries management depends on it.
I absolutely agree with this. With lower water levels there is less water to support the fishery and competition for food is increased. Just like too many fish in a small aquarium, you end up with stunted fish. Next time you go to Oroville, take home a limit of spots. Start packing a filet knife. They have a nice fancy fish cleaning station right by the bathroom at Bidwell. Those 13-14 inch fish make great tacos!

Pat
Chad Sweitzer
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Chad Sweitzer »

Not that I'm recommending this, but if anglers kept every fish they caught under 10 inches for a year, the lake might have a chance. This lake has been horribly managed, such a waste!
The spotted bass will spawn on houseboats and I've even seen them spawn on hazard bouys. There's just to many of them!
PB: Spot-9.625 (Shasta Record) LMB-13.27 SM-4.36
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

JoeLanghans wrote:This is due to the frequent, extreme fluctuations in lake level. Water column constantly changing, no structure, water clarity, pressure, stress etc. This lake will turn into Nacimiento in no time. Year round suspended fish that won't grow over a couple pounds. Also, too many boats. Wild West Bass Trail needs to cap the amount of boats in theirs tournaments. Unless this lake is full, it can't support a 170+ boat field. Lastly, too many tournaments and tournament trails. Looks like the greed for money is starting to affect the fisheries...

Ok. So I have compiled all of DFG tournament catch data and have been working on analyzing it to the extent it can be used for that purpose (long winded technical explanation required for that qualification). A brief glimpse is commensurate with TheFlys observation. Average tournament caught fish weight has been declining in Lake Oroville. Now - why? There are several possible explanations for this observation; however, none of them are the number of boats or number of tournaments - that would only be the case if any of the fish greater than a certain size were experiencing acute or latent mortality. There is no evidence of this and that poor of fish handling would not size discriminate. Also - I have been fishing this lake for 32 years, and my observations match the collective data.

Now - I can get on my soapbox about reservoir fluctuations and water management, but that ain't gonna change ****. So - I'll go back to my original post - keep some fish. What most anglers do not realize is that many fisheries management models and strategies actually anticipate, and rely, on some level of harvest from the population. With the change in the regulations to eliminate the slot limit - we should have actually seen greater harvest and thinning of fish in this size class and that has not happened. So my recommendation - eat tacos.
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Gary Dobyns
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Gary Dobyns »

The bite sucks and overall size of fish is definitely down. But there was some great fish weighed yesterday. Anyone running their electronics saw most of the bait and fish activity in 70-100 ft. of water. I never caught a fish this week or last week that was puking up smelt. We caught fish to 60 feet. Low water fluctuations certainly is never good. But let me remind everyone that the Coho plantings stopped a few years ago and they now plant Kings. This is a huge factor for sure.

As far as too many boats on the lake with 177 yesterday, this is a non-issue. Oroville fishes large. You can catch fish anywhere in Oroville. I fished in the North Fork, the Slot, Main Body, and South Fork yesterday. I'll admit I took a whipping but it had nothing to do being crowded.

I think it's awesome that WWBT is drawing huge numbers and people want the field capped. This is a new one for the west :) :) But, let me remind everyone that WWBT runs less events on a body of water than most other orgs. WWBT never hits a lake more than one team event and possibly one Pro-Am event. No one lake regions in WWBT.

THX to all the anglers that showed up at Oroville with a tough bite and made the event a great success!! Congrats to all that earned a check down to 35th. You earned it!!!
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by birdman920 »

I can't speak for Oroville " but Nacimiento has turned into a different lake ' this last year ' is used to take 8#s to win a tournament " now it takes 15#s to win "& 12#s to get a check ! .....
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Gary Dobyns
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Gary Dobyns »

Fisheries do cycle as well. We've seen the ups and downs really bad in Clear Lake and Delta. Yes we can get into spraying and all of this too. But lakes do cycle as well.

Want to make Oroville an outstanding fishery better than ever? Bring the Coho Salmon plantings back. Also, reintroduce Threadfin Shad back into the lake. All of our fisheries have shad except Oroville. They were in there many years ago. What happened to them? Can they be reintroduced by Fish & Game?
MGJR
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

Gary - for what reason do you think the catalyst is the difference in coho vs kings?

Shad were historically present in Oroville - and I do not know the answer as to why, but presumably the combination of wider fluctuation swings and the growth of the spotted bass population.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by milehi »

Spotted bass are not native to cali lakes are they? curious
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by kmah »

TheFLY wrote:Large fields and a 7 fish limit in early January each of the last three years give us the opportunity to really see what has been going on at Oroville. Some of these numbers are remarkably telling.

Notice that each of the last two years 11% of the filed blanked. Arguably it was a tiny bit harder to catch fish in 2017 than in 2018 as 24% of the field caugh 3 or fewer fish in 2017 and that number was slightly less at 22.6% in 2018.

But the weights are undoubtedly going down as you can see below. Most revealing is the median fish weighed in each event: 1.06 in 2018, 1.30 in 2017 and 1.47 in 2016.

2018 Team Event: 1/13/18
177 boats
16.17 to win, 2.31 per fish.
10.54 for top 10, 1.506 per fish.
8.65 to get a check, 1.236 per fish.
7.44 median weight. 1.063 per fish (89th place).
100 limits, 56.5%
19 teams blanked, 10.7%
40 teams caught 3 fish or less, 22.6% of the field.
Link: https://www.wildwestbasstrail.com/ca-te ... -oroville/

2017 Team Event: 1/14/17
167 boats.
14.70 to win, 2.1 lbs per fish.
12.08 for top 10, 1.726 per fish.
10.60 to get a check. 1.514 per fish.
9.11 median weight. 1.301 per fish (84th place).
94 limits, 56.3%
18 teams blanked, 10.8%
40 teams caught 3 fish or less, 24% of the field.
Link: http://www.westernbass.com/forum/post57 ... ts#p574584

2016 Team Event: 1/9/16
98 boats.
15.44 to win, 2.206 lbs per fish.
12.66 for top 10, 1.809 per fish.
10.26 median weight. 1.466 per fish (49th place).
70 limits, 71.4%
6 teams blanked, 6.1%
8 teams caught 3 fish or less, 8.2% of field.
Link: http://www.westernbass.com/forum/post55 ... le#p555874
Thanks for sharing these types of stats, I enjoyed it Craig.

K. Mah
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by greatwhite888 »

Just my opinion, but I feel that eliminating the 12-15" slot definitely had an effect on average fish size. I don't have stats to back it up but the average fish size definitely seemed to start decreasing about a year after the change to now...
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by john zillig »

I agree with birdman. Nacineinto now has much larger fish than Oroville. Just look at ABA last week. 2 limits over 14, 2 over 13 and 25th place had 10 lbs! Must have been awhile since you fished that lake. No trout or salmon planted. Just a ton of shad.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by sdisturber »

the spotted bass is not native to California so the people in charge of warm water fisheries at fish and wildlife are forced into a position where they either cant or don't look at the problem of size. years ago we were lied to and told that the slot limit was removed from all lakes in California .but if look at the size of spotted bass in all other lakes in n. cal they are all getting bigger even new melones where they were never officially planted ,but the difference between Oroville and all these other lakes are threadfin shad. everyone has seen the spots spit up 1 to 2 inch long pond smelt from Oroville.when you see the size of shad spit up in your live well at folsom, melones, berryessa, camanche its not to hard to imagine how many pond smelt and how much energy a spot has to use to eat enough pond smelt to equal one 3 to 4 inch shad.the pond smelt were introduced by fish and game into lake almanor if I remember right.they have migrated thru the feather river to lake Oroville and wiped out the shad population on the lake.the other food sources in these other lakes are kokanee ( see pics from bullards bar) and rainbow trout of both of which there are none in lake Oroville. fish and wildlife created this problem maybe if all the tournament organizations put a little phone call into the Oroville chamber of commerce to see if they can help (remember tourism dollars and a renewal of the FERC license for department of water resources to manage water from the lake are high priorities this year).just a thought because fishing right now reminds me of the mid 80's catching red eyed bass and that's not something I want to remember.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Delaney »

So, what else is new? In these canyon lakes that fluctuate a lot yearly spotted bass over populate the lake in 15 to 20 years because they can and do spawn in deeper water that smallies and largemouths can't. Spots have a successful spawn every year, and the other two don't because of fluctuating water levels. As a result as time passes spots end up being over populated and dominate a lake. Fishermen exacerbate the problem by releasing them. I think the biologists refer to this as a lake has exceeded its "carrying capacity" as there is not enough food to feed the population of fish. It will be interesting to watch Bullards Bar and see what happens there.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by DanIsaac »

Spotted bass and Coho? Look no farther imho......
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

What does the difference between coho and kings make? If thats your opinion - elaborate on why or provide some evidence. Delaney - overpopulation and dominating the fish community are not one in the same. I know many curse spotted bass - but the fishery would not be what it is w/o them. It is not an issue of overpopulation - its an issue of age/size distribution.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Popper »

I fished WWBT this last weekend, ands surprising didn’t find the lake crowded at all...considering the field of 177 boats.
Parking lot of course was the exception.
-WWBT did an outstanding job.

There’s no doubt catching a quality fish in Oroville is challenging at this point. We’ve caught many spots that were shape like trout over the last (2) weeks.
They looked anorexic in my opinion considering the length of some fish verse their weight.

I suspect water fluctuations during the spawn has impacted the fishery. Along with the absence of coho trout planting as G.Dobyns noted.

Regardless, the fishery will rebound overtime.

Ed
Last edited by Popper on Wed Jan 24, 2018 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Gary Dobyns
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Gary Dobyns »

Coho live shallower and provide a great forage for bass. Bass anglers caught many of these. It was very common to see a Coho skipping across the water with something chasing it down for a meal. No doubt a good Spot or Largemouth. The Kings live much deeper and don't provide the food source for bass that the Coho did. I'm no fisheries biologist but I do pay attention to things and compare opinions with other anglers. Another thing that's really noticeable is the lack of German Browns. In the winter I always caught one or two a day on jerk baits, small cranks, and small swimbaits. Now I haven't caught one in a couple of years. Very odd!!

As a bass fisherman I always supported project Kokanee as well.

I'd love to see Fish & Game reintroduce Shad into Oroville.

Also, the slot limit was put in place for the Red-eye bass. In my opinion the dominate Spotted Bass took care of this problem. I personally don't think the slot did much at all. I also agree with everything Popper stated. Most if not all the fish we caught were skinny and had body shape of a trout. That's the best description I've heard. I've fished Oroville for years and I've never seen the fish in this condition. Fisheries do cycle and maybe it's Oroville's turn.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

Thanks for elaborating Gary - I was trying to get at whether anglers were feeling that, based on their observations, whether it was bass foraging on coho or a difference in forage abundance (i.e., lower smelt #s). Given the size of planters - I cannot imagine that many of the bass were eating 6-9" planters for long with growth rates of coho in the 1"/month range (yes, there were bigger fish eating them, but I'm talking about the bulk of the population). The size of king and coho planters are similar as is their forage.

it has been some time since I've caught a brown...very little natural recruitment. The likelihood of any state agency stocking a forage fish back is slim to none.

I'll put together what data there is and share with everyone.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Delaney »

MJGR; I see that you're a biologist and am not at all surprised to see you defending spotted bass. I've fished most of the foothill lakes that we're talking about and have seen first hand what happened while it happened. I've personally seen spots start to dominate these lakes in a few years, and in the same time frame largemouth numbers would decline. One question I would have for you is why in these same lakes do the smallmouths virtually disappear?
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

Delaney - smallmouth and redeye bass are more similar in nature to spotted than largemouth and simply get out competed where they co-occur in CA's foothill lakes (typically). They are also more likely to interbreed - and you end up with a fewer "pure" smallmouth. I do see smallmouth from time to time - but typically smaller ones. It has been a while since I've caught a larger smallmouth from Oroville. I do catch a few redeye from time to time, but also some larger spots with red eyes??? :wink:
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Delaney »

They may interbreed, but they still look like spots to me. To me this indicates they are dominant and overpopulated.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by JMV »

One thing I have noticed about the fish that i've caught at Oroville recently, is they're a lot skinnier compared to the bass (Spotted & Largemouth) that are coming out of lakes such as Berryessa and Shasta. Which both lakes currently have a good population of shad. The pond smelt seem to lack the caloric value to support consistent growth rates for the bass population in Oroville, it hasn't always been this way as history shows though. I'm no biologist or expert, but from an angler perspective the food chain at Oroville (competition vs. supply) seems to be unbalanced to support average to above average growth rates. Oroville is still a good fishery that will go through its hi's and low's in the future. The fishing was just tough for some this past weekend, as I was in the percentage of 3 fish or less :-(
I don't see the large field tournaments having an adverse effect on the fisheries, Oroville still had plenty of water to fish even at 190+ feet below full pool and 177 boats. It's great to see tournament fishing growing year after year on the West Coast! Trails like WWBT, BBT, FLW and others have done a great job to grow and support our sport on the West Coast. The tournaments provide a significant economic boost to the communities that host the tournaments as well.
Just my 2 cents
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by DanIsaac »

I don't believe its a coincidence that the sensation of Coho plants and the beginning of size reductions began almost simultaneously.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

They didn't - 2012 was last year coho fingerlings were planted. measurable decreases in bass didn't occur until 2016-2017.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by mark poulson »

MGJR wrote:They didn't - 2012 was last year coho fingerlings were planted. measurable decreases in bass didn't occur until 2016-2017.
Did it take that long for the cohos to all get eaten?
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Delaney »

Regarding the slot limit----it's probably true that the slot limit is a big part of the population increase of spots in these lakes. It forced fishermen to release fish at the time they reached spawning size. I think there were posts on this site discussing this very subject. I had a discussion with a warden at McClure about this and he told me one of the purposes of the slot limit was to get fishermen to keep fish fish under 12". I don't think this happened.
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Gary Dobyns
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Gary Dobyns »

[quote="MGJR"]They didn't - 2012 was last year coho fingerlings were planted. measurable decreases in bass didn't occur until 2016-2017.[/quote]

I'm sure you have more and better data than I do. I spend 10-12 days a year on Oroville. The first thing I noticed in 2013-2014 was the decrease in LM that I was catching. It had been on an upswing every year for 4-5 years prior. Again this is just what I personally saw. I definitely seen my Super Spook bite slow way down and this was one of my best bites for bigger fish. Also in 2012 I caught 6 spots over 5 pounds from Jan-April. This was a huge number for me. In the last 3 years I have one fish over 5 pounds and it was last Feb and a LM.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Steve »

The problem at Oroville is very straight forward. Its a stunted population, always has been, and its getting worse as indicated by "skinnier fish", i.e., poorer condition. This has nothing to do with water levels, competition with other species, rearing habitat, or prey base. The problem is a log jam of sub 12 inch fish, very basic population dynamics. The slot would have solved this problem, but nobody, and I mean nobody, was harvesting sub 12 inch fish. In order for a slot to achieve its objectives, anglers have to harvest sub 12 inch fish. Good luck getting bass anglers to do this, particularly tournament fishermen. They just dont do it, and this is the number one argument against implementing slots.

The biggest challenge fish and game agencies across this country face today is stunted fisheries. So we just need to look in the mirror to understand why Oroville stinks. Get out there and harvest the small fish (do not harvest fish over 15 inches!). Trust me, your catch rates will not drop and in a few years the average weight of your fish will increase.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by MGJR »

Gary Dobyns wrote:
MGJR wrote:They didn't - 2012 was last year coho fingerlings were planted. measurable decreases in bass didn't occur until 2016-2017.
I'm sure you have more and better data than I do. I spend 10-12 days a year on Oroville. The first thing I noticed in 2013-2014 was the decrease in LM that I was catching. It had been on an upswing every year for 4-5 years prior. Again this is just what I personally saw. I definitely seen my Super Spook bite slow way down and this was one of my best bites for bigger fish. Also in 2012 I caught 6 spots over 5 pounds from Jan-April. This was a huge number for me. In the last 3 years I have one fish over 5 pounds and it was last Feb and a LM.
Those are great observations Gary - and I have personally made similar observation out there (although I haven't caught that may 5+ spots!) - the bite has certainly changed a bit. I'll try to wrap up what data I have available this weekend and share soon - I need hook and line time too! Steve is right, and it was my response from the beginning, keep more fish.
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by WB Staff »

This recent forum post on the shrinking size of Oroville bass sparked much discussion and has prompted me to look a little deeper into the tournament catch data available from DFG and share with everyone. This data is what is published and shared through the Department’s tournament permit program. DFG conducts sampling – but that data is not published and is not readily available. Tournament catch data will provide a reasonable metric from which to look at what may be occurring in Lake Oroville....

Read it here: http://www.westernbass.com/article/why- ... e-our-eyes
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Delaney »

Like I said in my previous post "what else is new", I have the same comment when I read that "bass is not a priority". Why keep the data if nothing is done?
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by ash »

MGJR wrote:Where to start....ill post a more intelligible response when I can sit down. For now...everyone keep and eat a few fish. Your fisheries management depends on it.
But but we are told harvesting makes us assholes and a pariah. In the case of a stunted fishery keeping and frying fish in the slot is what the biologists have been requesting - we are doing ourselves a disservice when not catching and keeping from Orroville. By the way I am just as guilty to not keep fish from there, maybe this is where i need to take my boy he keeps asking for a fish fry :shock:
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by ash »

WB Staff wrote:This recent forum post on the shrinking size of Oroville bass sparked much discussion and has prompted me to look a little deeper into the tournament catch data available from DFG and share with everyone. This data is what is published and shared through the Department’s tournament permit program. DFG conducts sampling – but that data is not published and is not readily available. Tournament catch data will provide a reasonable metric from which to look at what may be occurring in Lake Oroville....

Read it here: http://www.westernbass.com/article/why- ... e-our-eyes
Great read thanks WB staff and writer!
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by WB Staff »

+1 to writer Mike Gorman
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Kwin »

Steve and MGJR have it right. Excessive C&R are ruining bass fishery potential across the State. Either harvest more or get used to catching smaller fish. C&R culture has harvest rates that are very low Statewide, & 1-5% on most waters I work on in SoCal. DVL hasn't had a LMB harvest rate above 8% its entire existence. Coincidentally, the number of larger fish reported in my creel surveys there has decreased since it opened.
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Gary Dobyns
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by Gary Dobyns »

This has been a great topic on WB. I do keep a limit of spots from Oroville 2-3 times a year. I always release larger fish and all largemouth and smallies. Spots in the 13" to 14" are perfect and easy to filet. It's true most bass fishermen catch and release only and we think we're doing something good for the fishery. It's actually good to see biologists making a case to harvest some fish. I've seen several posts on this site about guys pissed off about someone harvesting fish. Honestly, in most cases it's been over killing a big fish. I believe Oroville and Shasta could use a few spots in the frying pan. If this last weekend at WWBT Shasta was any indication there's too many spots in 13" to 14" range. I caught 70-80 fish every day. It was fun but my thumbs still hurt!!
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Re: Oroville Fish Getting Smaller Year After Year 2018 vs. 2017 vs. 2016 WWBT Team Results

Post by birdman920 »

Hope I am not "hijacking" this thread ?... but talking about population density vs size/quality of fish " maybe the massive die off at Clear Lake ' was a good thing ? not talking about the politics of the die off , but the possibility of the remaining fish growing into the big CL "beasts" we know & love !......
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