| Show Winter fishing at Flaming Gorge Gorg By Uy it HAlan Man Alan Gandy Gamly Winter around Flaming Gorge is a quiet time of or the year-a year time of snow cold and very few tourists It is also the time when the real hard-core hard fishermen are rot out in their boa boats 15 trolling for trophy Brown Drown trout But Dut why winter It would seem li like JiK k those fish would have sense enough to come out in better weather so more people could enjoy catching them I l But Dut then maybe fish dont don't think the same way we humans do Actually fish eat less in the winter than at any other time of the year Since they are cold-blooded cold animals their metabolism is slowed down during the winter and their food requirements are much lower So why go out in freezing below temperatures and shiver all day to catch them if that's not when they eat the most To answer that question this writer talked to Bruce Druce Schmidt project leader of the Flaming Gorge office of the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources It seems that these big trout really like cold water Thus during the summer they are down to depths that average about feet feet feet-at at best a difficult depth to troll But Dut during the cold months of ot the year the water temperature of the reservoir is about the same at all depths so those loving cold-loving can be comfortable anywhere During the summer when the cold temperatures that they like so well are areat areat areat at the foot depth these big fish have one small problem The small fish that they eat like warm water and are swimming in the shallow bays So they have to leave their homes in the depths to come up for food mostly at night when the surface temperatures are are cooler Also maybe they feel fairly Safe from fishermen then During the winter the safest place for the small fish is still in the shallow water but it is cool enough for the big ones to swim there all day So even though they require less food they swim at depths where food is most available This also is a depth where they are more easily caught FOH FOR THOSE of us who either dont don't have the right equipment or dont don't want to risk the hazards of winter fishing there is one the consolation twelve to fourteen that we catch during the regular fishing season DO taste better When fingerlings or even size fish like the ones planted in the river come from the hatchery they have been used to a diet of fish pellets that leaves their meat pale and tasteless In a natural habitat their diet consists of plankton and crustaceans Within a year this will cause the flesh of planted fish to turn dark orange and become very flavorful But after they reach trophy size their diet is mostly other fish Their flesh again becomes pale and has less flavor and this time it also gets oily The Flaming Gorge Reservoir is a avery avery avery very productive body of water The inflow from the Green River is normally normally normally nor nor- mally high in nutrients providing a good growth of phytoplankton algae However unlike highly productive lakes where the water is warm and murky the reservoir is cold and reasonably clear This gives the reservoir the best qualities of both the clear water productive non-productive lakes and the highly productive lakes To capitalize on this situation every spring Rainbow trout are stocked in the r v f M d i rt if 1 t ti tit t A A s r 1 r ti- ti iF ICE FORMATIONS at Flaming Gorge Dam are made by water seeping seeping seeping seep seep- ing around the dam structure lower end of the reservoir and late Inthe in inthe inthe the summer ea eath h year Brown trout are stocked in the upper end This is because the Brown can better tolerate the warmer temperatures of the upper end The stock size is about five inches and it takes about one year for them to get up to twelve and fourteen inch keepers Lake trout have never been stocked in Flaming Gorge but have come in from upstream and established themselves naturally Now second and third generation resident fish are in the eight to twelve pound range It is difficult difficult difficult dif dif- dif dif- to tell how liow well vell the fingerlings survive each year but a study has been proposed to determine this factor ACCORDING to l Mr r. r Schmidt Things are developing well in the fish populations and Im I'm very optimistic about the future I recommend not introducing any new species until we wesee wesee wesee see what develops with the fish we have About ten years ago in 1967 bass were introduced to remove some of the competing forage fish from the shallow waters of the reservoir The bass have been a long longtime longtime longtime time in establishing themselves and they grow very slowly in cold water But this last summer several bass were accidentally caught by trout fishermen trolling in shallow water All in all fishing on the Flaming d Gorge Reservoir looks good for the next few years whether you like to brave the colds of winter or wait for warmer times of the year But no matter when when you go out it will probably always betrue be betrue betrue true that ten percent of the fishermen will catch ninety percent of the fish fishl I |
