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Subject: Barrett Lake, California
Submitted by Doc of BH (ip 67.118.95.70)
Date Fished: 6/8/2003
Water Temperature: 70
Water Clarity: 4 feet or greater As Steely Dan's new record says, "everything must go", yes...even Barrett Lake, the "El Salto of the North" Well, the numbers have been insane this year, I've been 4 times and this past Sunday I caught about 150. And I got 130 opening day, 100 a few weeks later, 120 the next. But it seemed weird that no shad were boiling, though. THAT'S BECAUSE THERE ARE NO SHAD, and the fish are ravenous and will hit a paperclip with a piece of tinfoil on it. According to the folks who work there, the extra cold weather made it impossible to stock the shad at the right time (just after the bass spawn) so there's none. So the fish will whack anything. If you know this lake, you know the quality of the fish (size, girth, fight, ability to heal) has been superb over the last 4 years or so, all due to excellent forage. But now we're headed back to the bad ol' days of the numerous small fish that the lake can support with no shad and a serious lack of protein. Already, fish glide to the surface, grey, thin backed, no gut at all, sores and paracites all over their thin, weak mouths. And it's the bigguns who go first because of their large food requirements. I got one that should have gone 7-8lbs but barely hit a pitiful 3lbs. Dead bass and readear are floating all over (they suffer, too and will not spawn as agressively as they should, = even less food). And, to add insult to injury, they will decimate this years spawn (and last 2 years, come to think of it) so entire year classes will be lost. The staff says that just this one year will crash the population due to the reduced lake size and the huge nimbers of 4-6 pounders. They say it cycles like this, and will take about 4-6 years to be back up again. It's not catastrophic yet, but if any of you guy know about Oso lake, you know that one year lost kills a lake. So re-think your investment to fish there this year...I know I will. I've got tix for the 29th...will report then how it looks.
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