Die-offs including mostly shad, but also bass, crappie, catfish and carp in western Riverside County have startled, even stunned residents and bass fishermen late this year. Most recently there was carnage at the 500-acre Canyon Lake in the gated community by the same name.
Of course, the stunning part is two-fold. To see bass to 11 pounds bobbing on the bank of Canyon Lake would require a cardiogram for most catch-and-release guys. But from the comments I’ve heard, there was almost as much mourning by those standing anywhere downwind of the decaying carcasses.
I have empathy for them. As a Lake Elsinore resident, I have endured nearly a dozen such die-offs on the home waters over the last 28 years. The pungent odor merely brought back memories of days gone by.
But while I can’t mollify the impact of dead fish breath, I can offer up hope for the bass fishery: things really aren’t that bad. As was the case a couple months back at the natural lake downstream from Canyon, just a week after the first of two large die-offs, the Elsinore Bass Club recorded one of its best catches ever on Elsinore.
And likewise, one of my Canyon Lake hosts, after calling about the loss at his home water, went out with his son and caught 26 bass in half a day. Then yesterday, when fishing the areas least affected by the wind-aided turnover, we probably caught them at about the same hourly rate.
From a fish population standpoint, the Lake Elsinore situation is much more tenuous (but it is being stocked with 600 largemouths this winter.) But Canyon Lake’s population is clearly much more robust.
Someone posted that the lake had lost 3000 bass. That number is probably a bit high (but kudos to club members here and residents who “rescued” some 300). But what if it were actually 3000? Larry Bottroff, former DFG and San Diego City fishery biologist, has 30 years of records from the days of full harvest through the early years of catch and release, and they indicate that small reservoirs are extremely resilient.
Over that period of time, unless there was a severe drought where water levels continued to drop, even angler harvests (take ‘em home on a stringer harvest) of 25 percent of the adult bass population could be recouped within two to three years in most cases if the water levels were to rise.
Canyon Lake, however, is not subject to drought in the same fashion, by contract keeping pretty much a minimum water level even in dry spells. That means there will likely be no “lost” year classes of bass and, in fact, reduced competition for all predator fish over the next 16 to 24 months, as a result of the die-off, should lead to faster growth for all species.
Anyway, turnovers and fish die-offs are natural–but not terminal for the storied little reservoir. Leave the hearse in the garage.
Nice article, thanks for sending it my way!