03/18/2016
DIVISION OF WILDLIFE MEDIA RELEASE
Restocking efforts at Red Fleet Reservoir are underway with new fish species soon joining the wipers, rainbow trout and native cutthroat trout that were stocked in November 2015.
“We plan to move the first load of yellow perch from Fish Lake to Red Fleet in early March,” says Natalie Boren, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) biologist. “Black crappie and sterile walleye will follow soon thereafter.”
Located 10 miles north of Vernal, Red Fleet Reservoir was treated with rotenone in October 2015 to remove fish that posed a threat to native, endangered fish living downstream in the Green River. A citizens committee helped the DWR choose a variety of fish to place in the reservoir, including several fish species not currently found in northeastern Utah.
“In addition to providing a great fishery to anglers in the Uinta Basin,” Boren says, “we’re hoping to create a fishery that anglers will be willing to travel to the Basin to fish.”
Yellow perch will be the first fish to go in this spring. “We want to get perch in the reservoir as quick as we can,” Boren says. “We want to give the perch a chance to spawn in Red Fleet this spring. Spawning in the reservoir this spring will help the perch establish themselves faster than if we waited and stocked them later in the season.”
Biologists would also like to stock adult black crappie before the crappie spawn this spring. “We’ll collect the crappie at Willard Bay Reservoir starting in late March,” she says. “While we’re at Willard Bay, we’ll also collect ripe male and female walleye to spawn in one of our hatcheries. The sterile walleye fry that result from this effort will then be placed in Red Fleet.”
Boren says sterile walleye look and act the same as fertile walleye. “The major differences are the sterile walleye usually grow faster,” she says, “and we can control their numbers. Our goal is to produce 5 million sterile walleye fry to stock into Red Fleet. We’re hoping the fry will be ready to stock sometime in April.”
Mountain whitefish are also on the stocking list. Whitefish should be placed in Red Fleet by early June.
*After the treatment*
The fish that have been placed and will be placed in Red Fleet will restart the reservoir’s fishery after a rotenone treatment killed all of the fish last fall. Biologists who monitored the fish kill were surprised by what they saw.
"Except for rainbow trout,” says Trina Hedrick, regional DWR aquatics manager, “we didn't see the numbers or the size of fish that we expected to see. The species we expected to find in the reservoir, including bass, bluegill and walleye, were all there, but in smaller numbers than we thought we’d find. Also, we didn’t see many big fish.
"We found some nice-sized bass—but fewer than expected—almost no large walleye and only one large brown trout,” Hedrick says. “Oddly enough, some of the bluegill we saw were considerably larger than what we've seen in our nets during surveys."
Now that restocking work is underway, Boren says DWR staff, members of the
committee and anglers in the Uinta Basin are excited to see Red Fleet's new
fishery evolve.
“Seven species will be stocked in Red Fleet," Boren says. "Hopefully, all of them will perform well. Some might not, though. That’s why the committee, which included several bass anglers, decided to list largemouth bass as an alternate species. They didn't want too many predators in the system and not have enough forage to feed them.”
Boren says Red Fleet Reservoir has always been a beautiful place to fish. "With these new species,” she says, “we hope to create some new fishing opportunities and new family-oriented fishing experiences for anglers in the Basin."