Ask the Wyoming Game & Fish

[mulebarnmax]

The lake has dropped nearly 8 feet in elevation since late April.  I heard there is a new "chief" at the BuRec. Hope he knows what he is doing. Maybe someone should tell him that there is not that great of snow pack and that once the water is down the river, it is down the river for good.....

[Special]

Ok got a question. Around the campfire a question started with limits. In the regulations it states Trout 6 General Daily Creel & Possession Limits.  So if we catch 6 Trout a day, for 3 days. Have a total of 18 fish in the cooler are we brakeing a rule/law. Possession limit was were the question came up. Now for me I only keep what I eat, but a great example was at the desmit derby. If I bring in two fish a day. One for weight and one for length. I'll have 6 fish total for the 3 days. Now if I catch a taged fish or different trout, example brown vs. rainbow. It would have pushed me over the Possession of 6 fish in three days. Due to no catch and release in the derby. Which made this question a good one. 

[GemCitySlayer]

Are there still gizzard shad in Wheatland Reservoir 1?  Are they reproducing?

[WGFFishBio]

Are there still gizzard shad in Wheatland Reservoir 1?  Are they reproducing?

Good question. This May we captured gizzard shad from Glendo and transplanted about 300 adults to Keyhole and 100 adults to Wheatland #1. Our goal of course is for them to reproduce and to provide good forage for game fish. I'm sure the Laramie crew will be checking later this summer to look for young shad (I'll be doing the same on Keyhole).
Hope this helps.

[GemCitySlayer]

Excellent.  I had read in a newsletter from 2005 or 2006 I believe that mentioned the G/F had successfully planted 100 gizzard shad in there and they reproduced... providing excellent forage for the eyes and cats.

Here's to hoping they "take off"!

[gettinjiggywithit]

Are there really grayling in goldeneye? 

[salted minnow]

   Are lighted bobbers legal in wyoming for fishing at night?

[GemCitySlayer]

What can you (G/F) tell me about the shad population in Grayrocks?

I've fished this lake for 3-4 years now and every year, by about mid-august I see a lot of baitfish...   Some of the baitfish swirls are baby drum, I got close enough to a big group that I could easily identify them... BUT....this last trip I saw a different shaped ball of baitfish and after casting into it I caught a bass that was puking up what were clearly threadfin shad minnows (1-2" long).

Couldn't believe it, but it was a welcome sight to see!  Guess I'm just wondering when they were planted, how many survive the winter, how their #'s have shown up in nettings, etc.... is this the only lake in the state with Threadfin shad?

[Ize]

I notice fish in the G&F survey pics being fairly large and killed in gillnets I suppose.  Seems to me the G&F might be robbing a potential trophy fish from a license buying sportsman?  Some of the lakes have very few large fish in them and I find it unfortunate that the G&F is placing fish killing gill nets to see what is in the lake, just ask the anglers or bait stores how the fishing has been, stop poachers, and leave our fish be.  What would happen if the G&F started shooting trophy deer and elk from aircraft to study them in the name of wildlife biology?  Sportsman have to buy a license and fish legally and I don't see why the G&F should have the right to fish any differently. Perhaps other states do the same, but does that make it correct?  Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions so I thought I would ask the G&F what percentage of the fish netted or trapped die?  I have caught thousands of walleyes and am still waiting to boat one over 9lbs (dumb luck I guess).  I understand how difficult and what an accomplishment it is to catch a large trophy fish and hate to see even one trophy gillnetted for an inspection that will probably give data that is already known by local fishermen.

[bbkyle35]

I'm not a biologist, but in all the netting I've done I would say less than 5% of fish in gill nets are dead. The number of trophy fish caught in them is very small, I only remember 2 in four months of work (both were released unharmed) Creel data is used and is very important, but the data collected has limitations. To truly know how a water is fairing and make management decisions, netting is really the only option.

[WGFFishBio]

I notice fish in the G&F survey pics being fairly large and killed in gillnets I suppose.  Seems to me the G&F might be robbing a potential trophy fish from a license buying sportsman?  Some of the lakes have very few large fish in them and I find it unfortunate that the G&F is placing fish killing gill nets to see what is in the lake, just ask the anglers or bait stores how the fishing has been, stop poachers, and leave our fish be.  What would happen if the G&F started shooting trophy deer and elk from aircraft to study them in the name of wildlife biology?  Sportsman have to buy a license and fish legally and I don't see why the G&F should have the right to fish any differently. Perhaps other states do the same, but does that make it correct?  Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions so I thought I would ask the G&F what percentage of the fish netted or trapped die?  I have caught thousands of walleyes and am still waiting to boat one over 9lbs (dumb luck I guess).  I understand how difficult and what an accomplishment it is to catch a large trophy fish and hate to see even one trophy gillnetted for an inspection that will probably give data that is already known by local fishermen.

I'm sorry that you feel this way and that you have a poor attitude towards G&F. I too hate seeing a large fish get killed in one of our gill nets. Without gill netting however, we would have no clue as to how the fish are doing. Without gill netting, we would not be able to make any necessary management changes. There is a ton of data that we can collect from a few nets that an angler or a bait shop owner can't tell us.
For example, this week I gill netted Keyhole Reservoir. We take length and weight measurements, which in-turn generate what is called relative weight (a measure of fish "plumpness" or fish health, a fat fish generally is healthy, skinny not so much). Walleye that happen to die in our nets we age by taking out the their otoliths (an inner ear bone that shows rings like a tree). I use this data to gather a snapshot of the age structure of the population (lots of old fish?, lots of young fish? or a good mix of both). We also identify what fish have been foraging on by cutting open the bellies of walleye that died in our nets. This gives a good indication of the forage within the reservoir that is often difficult to capture ourselves.
We do other netting like trap nets, which are a nonlethal way to collect fish samples. In the spring we use nighttime electrofishing to gain samples, and again nonlethal.
Gill netting allows us to sample everything, fish that anglers don't target, such as carp, carp suckers, catfish, perch, and drum.
Like I mentioned earlier, I don't like to see big trophies die in our nets either, but every fish in one of our nets tells a story as to how that fishery is doing. When fisherman mention that they don't like the fact that we use gill nets to collect fish I bring up the analogy of checking your car's engine oil. You pull out the dipstick, wipe off the oil, and do that two or three times before you are assured your oil level is good. That oil never goes back into your motor, but at the same time, it doesn't hurt your motor. Same with our sampling, we take out a few fish, but it doesn't hurt the fishery.
On a lighter note. Have you ever known a fisherman or a bait shop owner to tell the 100% truth about the fishing or a fish they caught? Our netting doesn't lie.
Hope this helps.

[Ize]

Thanks for the reply! and please don't consider my question and statements as a poor attitude towards G&F, only needing answers.  I have used netting data collected for many years on many lakes and have to admit I like the G&F reports, I was just curious after encountering nets while wanting to fish a point and the question popped up in my mind, how many fish will be missing from this point the next time I fish and is it all necessary?  I don't prefer the analogy of comparing fish to oil over the one about killing trophy big game to collect data    Although I agree it doesn't hurt the fishery, a 10lb walleye or 30" brown could be considered as much a trophy as a 6pt bull or 30" muley.  That being said perhaps the data is implemented to improve the fishery, but I am not sure what is done with data always helps a fishery, i guess that would vary greatly, for instance I find it odd that the park is spending a lot of money trying to save the cuttthroat by removing lake trout, so now sportsman are being left with less of both.  Wildlife biology again perhaps taking more away from sportsman than giving back.  What if the G&F started killing desmet walleyes because of an opinion that walleyes do not belong along side another non-native fish (rainbow) or worse decided only cutts should be in desmet?  Overall the G&F ranks highly on my opinion of other state agencies (and none of them could be expected to be perfect) and the fishing is great in WY! guess I just like stirring the pot to understand things better.  What are you talking about, anglers never lie 

[WGFFishBio]

I have watched Game and Fish put nets in Boysen in spots that make no sense.  Suspended in deep water in the spring.  I  pulled one and found it full of DEAD carp. I believe that G&F has mostly cold water biologist and they do not understand warm water fisheries or probably fishermen.  Nets dropped randomly in random lakes will give random data.  Where is the science?

I shouldn't spend my time responding to this, apparently we don't know anything anyway. First off, you should never pull one of our nets. They are set for a purpose. Second, we set nets in different places to target certain species certain times of the year. Every net has a purpose. Third, we understand warm water fish and fisheries just fine. Fourth, If we set nets on every obvious spot to catch say walleye, I'd get yelled at for ruining some fishermans favorite spot. So in a lot of cases we try to stay away from the "good fishing holes", but yet still get good data. Fifth, we tend to look at the long-term trend data, so a spot may be random, but if we sample in those same spots every year, it is no longer random and they produce good long-term data sets that help us to make good sound (not random) management decisions.

[GemCitySlayer]

WYO Game and fish.

When was the last time the game and fish stocked brown trout in North Crow Reservoir?  How many get stocked annually?

Any chance we could see some tiger trout in there one day?

[GemCitySlayer]

And another (?):

Could we get individual cutthroat state records (Bonneville, Bear river, Snake River, Yellowstone, etc)?  Seems like it would be a lot better than just having a generic cutthroat state record.