Better to to Catch and Release stripers or keep?
We do mostly trout fishing and release far more than we keep for the eating. However, in some places, talking to fish biologists, they want us to take fish as certain species are overpopulated and thus stunted.
I don't know much about stripers. I know that they are not stocked and multiply just fine no matter the fishing pressure. With Silverwood, is the recommendation to keep or release the Stripers caught?
Thanks.
There is a warning about eating too many of them at Silverwood. But I'll let others with more knowledge then myself, give more details from about that!Originally Posted by Ultralight
keep as much as you can as long as your within limit regulations, stripers are a invasive species if they dont have any small shads to feed on they'll start targeting little bass, panfish etc. I remember the panfish population was high 20 years ago, what do you think killed them off
Mmm, with that train of thought -- keep as many largemouth, bluegill, crappie, smallmouth, rainbow trout that you want as well within your limit since they are also non-native, invasive species to the region.
Whole native species nonsense is made up by same liberals who think there are 53 genders and a man can become a woman by mutilating himself. Get this, plants and animals move around. Sometimes they're carried by other animals and get established somewhere else. Sometimes a bird eats some seeds and ***** them out somewhere the plant never lived before and it starts growing there for the first time. Nothing unnatural about this and the people stating the contrary are simply trying to freeze time.
My take is eat um up, no worries unless your pregnant or a child or a pregnant child I suppose. At my age I could eat 20 lbs of striper a day and not glow. They also have a warning out on algae contaminating the fish somehow. Any reasonable individual washes their fish after cleaning and that is all that is necessary for the algae problem.
Take your limit, please! Too many fish, although the largemouth and panfish seem to survive just fine. I realize the crappie population and shad seem to have taken a hit but there are millions of silverside and other forage not to mention I’ve caught some slab bluegill the last couple weeks on the fly, th lakes in fantastic shape. Oh and on a positive note shad have been spotted by reliable sources this summer! Hope they return in abundance helps with the average size of the fish I believe and who doesn’t love a topwater shad boil.
Speaking of topwater, the whole summer there has been a very good topwater bite.
But if I were Etucker I definitely would not catfish at Silverwood, horrible bite I’d stay away if I were him.
I love you too Dale! Lol
The problem with SB is their reproductive potential (fecundity) in an enclosed system (lake). Each female SB has about 100,000 eggs per lb body weight. By contrast LMB have about 12,000 eggs per lb body weight. It's a numbers game for SB with their progeny evolutionarily migrating out to the ocean to mature and grow. Enclosed lakes cannot support the consumptive demands of all of those SB spawned which is why they are a "problem", overpopulate and decimate the health of the inland fisheries they spawn successfully or have additional eggs/small fish pumped in through water transfer (i.e. Silverwood, Pyramid, Castaic, Skinner, DVL etc.).
For the health of the lake ecosystem and best management practices to foster a healthy fishery it is recommended to harvest/remove as many striped bass (SB) as legal. The bulk of the SB population in Silverwood are stunted and in all likelihood have not lived long enough to bioaccumulate the level of mercury determined to be unhealthy. I've had SB tested at another SoCal reservoir that verified this assumption. Anything approaching 3-5 lbs. would be questionable in my opinion regarding mercury accumulation, if that size fish was eaten on a regular basis. Any "unicorn" fish over 15 lbs I won't eat....but those are increasingly rare due to the stunting/overpopulation mentioned above.
Kwin, how did you get the mercury level tested? It seems that my friends are catching mostly 1-2 pounders off silverwood and it would be interesting to test those.
MWD had SB tested at one of their lakes to get off (stay off) of the 303(d) impaired lake listing. MWD paid for the very expensive testing. 1-2 lb SB are only 1-2 years old and identical to the sizes tested at the other lake. My only concern would be Silverwood is completely State Water Project (which is higher in Hg due to mining activities in its drainage) than the other lake where SWP is blended with Colorado River Water which isn’t as high in Hg. But I still think the smaller SB at Silverwood haven’t lived long enough to accumulate threshold levels of Hg. I would and do eat that size fish when I catch them. Up to you....
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