Pickwick Tailrace Report

[Tnriverluver]

In the boils themselves it varies from 25 to about 30 feet. Normal water levels. Holes, boulders, ledges and such. It is all deeper right now than in years past because of how much they have had the gates open and all the turbines running almost non-stop the last 2-3 years. The bright side is it has also washed away 99% of all the snags that were between the wing wall and the locks

[bfish]

Originally Posted by Alphahawk

T.... There are tons of them you can catch that are one or two inches short of 15 inches and I always think that the next year I will catch tons of legal fish....but that never works out. So what happens to all those short fish in the next year? Each year still catch fish one or two inches short. I don't have a clue what happens to them but one would think all those fish would grow.

It shows that the size limit is working. The exploitation rate is 63-84% (ie 2/3 plus of all keepers in the population are kept). 15" size was chosen so that males and females could spawn twice before being harvested. Macenia and Bettoli have a few technical papers, if you want more details.

[Tnriverluver]

Everyone fussed many years ago when they changed bass from 12 to 15 inches. Look how well that helped the size of bass being caught in all the tournaments now. 8-10 lb fish are common place when beforehand that was almost unheard of. The Asian carp are what we need to worry about before they destroy one of the greatest fisheries in the world.

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by Tnriverluver

In the boils themselves it varies from 25 to about 30 feet. Normal water levels. Holes, boulders, ledges and such. It is all deeper right now than in years past because of how much they have had the gates open and all the turbines running almost non-stop the last 2-3 years. The bright side is it has also washed away 99% of all the snags that were between the wing wall and the locks

I lost 3 anchors fishing between wing wall and old lock back between 2001-2004. Only time I used them and one toss and each was gone forever...LOL.



Regards

[Alphahawk]

Originally Posted by bfish

It shows that the size limit is working. The exploitation rate is 63-84% (ie 2/3 plus of all keepers in the population are kept). 15" size was chosen so that males and females could spawn twice before being harvested. Macenia and Bettoli have a few technical papers, if you want more details.

Yeah not many throw back keeper sauger....good point.



Regards

[MNfisher]

Originally Posted by Alphahawk

Yeah not many throw back keeper sauger....good point.



Regards

Reminds me of a lake in MN that I fished a lot, it had a 16" minimum on walleye. In the winter it was common to catch 5-10 walleyes from 13-15" long without a keeper. One winter I kept track on my fish house wall. I caught 76 walleyes that winter and 1 was 16 1/8" the rest were under 16". Now this was a unrealistic year, but there has to be some reasoning to it.

The following year, all those 13-15"ers were 16-17, but we caught much less of them. because everyone of them went to the bottom of a bucket by everyone fishing the lake.

[bd-]

Originally Posted by bfish

It shows that the size limit is working. The exploitation rate is 63-84% (ie 2/3 plus of all keepers in the population are kept). 15" size was chosen so that males and females could spawn twice before being harvested. Macenia and Bettoli have a few technical papers, if you want more details.

I haven't been following the sauger studies for a little while. Has there been any new data on how many fish showing up in the creel are spawned fish vs. stocked fish? Last time I looked at it, the spawning success was low enough that sauger were in danger of turning into a put/take fishery. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how many time the fish spawn before harvest if the spawns aren't producing harvestable fish. I'm hoping some progress is being made - it didn't sound encouraging last time I read much on the state of the sauger population. I'm pretty out of date on the subject though.

bd

[bfish]

bd, I am not current either. However, I do know that the spawns are very flow dependent. Flows that are good for Pickwick, usually mean failed spawn in eastern TN due to being too low. Good spawning flows in eastern TN means failed spawns further down river due to excessive flows.

IMO, if there were no barriers in the way, the sauger would mostly seek out their preferred flow but with the many dams blocking passage, they tend to hang out and wait for their "magical" flow. While hanging out, they get targeted pretty heavily by fisherman.