More PIKE Problems Threaten Northern California

[1flyfisher]

I had said it for years, decades now that the Pike came from NV. No doubt in my mind. The result of some idiot transporting live fish from one water (Commins/Basset) to another(Frenchman's/Davis) as we see so often with the spread of smallmouth bass in Sierra Lakes. Idiots just love to do this shit. It is only a matter of time before some idiots moves them again.
I hope NV FINALLY does something about Commins. It was a great fishery in the late 90's I went several times and landed a 31" Rainbow there as well as many bows in the 5-7 lb range. Great midge hatches with huge midges and huge swarms of them.
After the 97 treatment I netted bluegills in Cow Creek but CADFG didn't want to hear about it. A few days later @ Mosquito I put on a new leader/tippet 4X and a #10 Bugger. It got Sliced right off. I immediately knew what it was, but tried to convince myself otherwise. But sure enough a week or so later the first pike was caught. I don't want to go through the whole Frenchmans/Davis Pike nightmare again. These pike need to go from NV and they need to go now. NV has been dragging their feet for years/decades on this. It is a major threat and I wish the state of CA or the FEDS could do something to rid the west of this threat once and for all. Until pike are gone from NV we can end up right back where we were in the early 90's with some douchebag dropping them in Frenchman's and Davis. As far as I see it with nonnative pike in NV it is just a matter of time till they get moved west into CA once again.
http://www.rgj.com/article/20100207/NEWS/100207025

[1flyfisher]

Nearly three years after California biologists poisoned a popular Sierra fishing lake to rid it of Northern pike, Nevada officials are considering doing the same thing at another lake overrun by the voracious predator.

And if the Nevada Department of Wildlife succeeds in ridding Comins Lake of pike, the small reservoir south of Ely could once again become a trophy trout fishing destination that once enjoyed worldwide fame.

“The fishing was fabulous. It was probably the best I’ve ever seen,” said Bob Marcum, a long-time fisherman and angler supplier in Ely.

“I literally had fly fisherman coming in from all over the world,” said Marcum, 89.
No more. Pike, a top-line predator, have eaten the trout of Comins Lake. Now they’re eating each other.

“Number-wise, it’s tens of thousands” of pike in the lake, said Chris Crookshanks, a fisheries biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. “They’ve virtually eliminated all the trout and bass.”

Pike and Comins Lake have a long history. In what Crookshanks acknowledges was a “huge mistake” in hindsight, Nevada biologists in 1969 stocked the lake with pike as a means to control populations of Utah chub, considered a nuisance fish, while providing a new opportunity for anglers.

They controlled the chub and more, with Comins Lake becoming a big “cereal bowl” for the aggressive fish, Crookshanks said.

“Pike did what they often do in a small reservoir environment. When they finished with the chub, they ate the trout and bass,” Crookshanks said. “By the mid 1980s, they had totally decimated those fisheries. It was basically just a buffet and a feeding frenzy.”

Pike poisoned in 1989

Recognizing the problem, Nevada biologists in 1989 poisoned Comins Lake with the chemical rotenone to rid it of pike. The lake dried up the next year, allowing officials to confirm all the pike were gone.

Water levels rose during subsequent years and in 1995, NDOW again began stocking the lake with rainbow and brown trout. Trout thrived in a lake rich with the invertebrates they need for food and in no time, Comins was full of “huge, huge trout,” Crookshanks said.
“It quickly became a phenomenal trout fishery. It was a trophy class, blue-ribbon trout fishery,” he said.

But then someone replanted pike in the lake around 1999, probably bringing them from Bassett Lake, a lake about 20 miles north of Ely where pike are also found.

Knowing it would be “game over” for the Comins Lake trout fishery if pike became firmly reestablished, biologists tried to control their population through efforts such as electroshocking.

“Our efforts were futile,” with strong spawns of pike documented in the lake in the early 2000s and a corresponding crash of the trout population experienced, Crookshanks said. As recently as 2006, trout were about 80 percent of the fish in Comins Lake. In 2008, they represented less than 10 percent.

“Once the pike became established it only took a few years to virtually eliminate trout,” Crookshanks said. “They are virtually gone today.”

With much of their food supply gone, the pike of Comins Lake are in a vulnerable position. That makes now the ideal time to again attempt eradication of pike by poisoning the lake as well as nearby Bassett Lake.

“It’s the only feasible solution to get rid of pike, to eradicate and start over,” Crookshanks said.

While Nevada’s budget problem makes the proposal uncertain, biologists are proposing a $173,000 effort to try once again to remove pike from the area, hopefully this time for good.

Lake Davis experience

The situation is similar, if less controversial, to years of efforts to get rid of the pike first discovered in 1994 in Lake Davis near Portola, Calif. Pike decimated the lake of trout and led to fears they would escape downstream, potentially invading the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and threatening multimillion-dollar salmon and steelhead fisheries.

In 1997, the California Department of Fish and Game poisoned the lake with rotenone in a highly controversial move that led to candlelight vigils by protesters, opponents chaining themselves to buoys and gun-bearing police swarming the streets of Portola.

Pike reappeared in Lake Davis in 1999, either because they were replanted there by someone or because the first eradication effort failed to kill all the fish.

After a public outreach campaign, California Fish and Game poisoned Lake Davis again in 2007 in a $16 million effort described at the time by one official as “probably the biggest operation in fish-and-game history.”

Surveys conducted last October indicate the effort succeeded, with no pike found.
“It’s clean,” Joseph Johnson, a senior environmental scientist with the state, said of Lake Davis.

Some anglers like pike

Not everyone wants the pike in Comins Lake to go, Marcum said. To some, they remain a popular fighting fish that provide an angling challenge.

“There’s a number of locals here who love to catch pike. They have no qualms about it,” Marcum said. “And they are completely against removing them.”

That raises the issue that if Nevada does spend the money to eradicate pike, the danger could persist that someone could introduce them again.

To help discourage such activity, NDOW is pursing a new law that would make introduction of “injurious aquatic wildlife,” including pike and piranha, a felony with civil penalties of up to $250,000.

“For personal reasons, someone wanted pike in there,” Rob Buonamici, Nevada’s chief game warden, said of the last time pike were introduced into Comins Lake.

That practice can’t continue, Buonamici said. Fines assessed against any violators could help finance any costly eradication efforts stemming from their crime.

“Why should honest sportsmen foot the bill when someone breaks the law?” he asks.

Pike in two states

1969: Nevada wildlife officials introduce northern pike into Comins Lake and Bassett Lake.

1989: Nevada poisons Comins Lake to remove pike, which have overrun the lake’s ecosystem. The lake soon becomes a hugely successful trout fishery.

1994: Pike are discovered in Lake Davis northwest of Reno.

1997: Amid protests, California biologists poison Lake Davis to remove pike.

1999: Pike are rediscovered in both Comins Lake and Lake Davis.

2007: California again uses chemicals to kill pike in Lake Davis. This time, the eradication appears successful.

2008: Pike have killed virtually all the trout in Comins Lake.

2010: The Nevada Department of Wildlife proposes a second attempt of removing pike from Comins Lake through chemical eradication.

http://www.rgj.com/article/20100207/NEWS/100207025

[David Lee]

The situation is similar, if less controversial, to years of efforts to get rid of the pike first discovered in 1994 in Lake Davis near Portola, Calif. Pike decimated the lake of trout and led to fears they would escape downstream, potentially invading the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and threatening multimillion-dollar salmon and steelhead fisheries.

Similar , but different . We didn't need Pike to totally wipe-out our Salmon stocks -

We did it ourselves .

David

[BigOkieWhiteBoy916]

Similar , but different . We didn't need Pike to totally wipe-out our Salmon stocks -

We did it ourselves .

David

+1

For once I agree with David......Weird.......

[David Lee]

+1

For once I agree with David......Weird.......

Admit it .... you have a shrine to me in your closet . Don't bother lyin' ....

The really sad part of Pike here/no Salmon ?? None of us here have shown-up at the State Capitol w/ burning torches - apathy rules the day , as usual .

D.~