stalker lake fish survey summary survey... · stalker lake was constructed in 1947 by damming chief...

Amenities Boat ramp Picnic areas Primitive restrooms Walking trails Fishing (open water and

ice) Small game hunting Wildlife viewing

Regulations

Min. size for largemouth and smallmouth bass is 15”.

Statewide bag and possession limits also apply.

General Information: Stalker Lake is a 27 acre water located on Stalker Lake State Wildlife Area, near Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Wray Hatchery. Anglers can expect excellent fishing for largemouth bass, redear sunfish, bluegill, and quality fishing for channel catfish. Location: Yuma County. From Wray take Hwy 43 2 miles west to CR FF. Take CR FF 1.5 miles nor th to the access road. Take the access road ½ mile west to the lake. Recreational Management: Colorado Parks and Wildlife Fishery Management: Warmwater angling Purchase a Fishing License: http://cpw.state.co.us/buyapply/Pages/Fishing.aspx

Previous Stocking 2019

Largemouth bass Channel catfish

2018

Largemouth bass Smallmouth bass Channel catfish

2017


Grass carp

2016 Largemouth bass Channel catfish

2015

Largemouth bass Channel catfish Redear sunfish

2014


2013


Sportfishing Notes Largemouth bass

Stalker Lake was once the home of Colorado’s state record largemouth bass and new contenders are known to exist in the lake.

Redear sunfish and Bluegill

Stalker Lake is currently the home of Colorado’s state record redear sunfish and new contenders are known to exist in the lake.

State-record sized bluegill are also known to exist in the lake.

Stalker Lake is one of the few places in Colorado where anglers can catch re-dear sunfish.

When ice angling, tip jigs with waxworms or a small piece of a night crawler.

Channel catfish

Fish exceeding 10 lbs are NOT uncommon.

Fishing off the bottom near the dam is recommended.

Chicken liver, cut carp, cut shad, or shrimp as bait work well.

Stalker Lake LAST UPDATED: MARCH 2020

FISH SURVEY AND MANAGEMENT DATA Mandi Brandt - Aquatic Biologist (Brush)

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About the Lake... Stalker Lake was constructed in 1947 by damming Chief Creek, a groundwater-fed tributary to the North Fork of the Republican River. In 1961, the lake was enlarged to its present size of 27 acres. Similar to the much larger eastern plains reservoirs, Stalker Lake was created to store water; however, a fairly stable water level is maintained at the lake, allowing Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biolo-gists to manage a quality warmwater fishery.



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Largemouth bass Stalker Lake is arguably one of the best largemouth bass fisheries northeastern Colorado has to offer. Whether anglers are looking to catch several fish in the 12 to 15” range, or h- ave their sights on a trophy, Stalker Lake has the potential to serve up the goods. Annual surveys indicate that several quality- (12”) and preferred-sized (15”) bass, as well as a handful of memorable-sized (20”) bass inhabit the lake (Figures 1-2; Table 1). Trophy-sized (25”) bass undoubtedly exist as well. The presence of big bass can be attributed to the catch-and-release mentality of Stalker Lake bass anglers, who more often than not turn fish loose for another lucky angler.

About the Fish...



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About the Fish...

Figure 1. Largemouth bass catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) during the 2006-2019 annual surveys at Stalker Lake. Annual surveys were not performed in 2008 or 2018. For comparative purposes, the number of fish collected was standardized for one hour of electrofishing. Several stock-, quality-, and preferred-sized fish, as well as a handful of memorable-sized fish were caught. Stock length (8”) is the length at which fish are considered to provide recreational value, quality length (12”) is considered to be the minimum size of fish most anglers like to catch, preferred length (15”) is considered the to be the length of fish most anglers would prefer to catch, memorable length (20”) is considered to be the size of fish most anglers remember catching, and trophy length (25”) is considered to be the size of fish worthy of acknowledgement. Several Master Angler Award-qualifying largemouth bass (18”) were also caught.

Largemouth bass continued...



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About the Fish...

Table 1. Relative stock density (RSD; think of it like a percent) of largemouth bass during the 2006 to 2019 annual surveys at Stalker Lake. Annual surveys were not performed in 2008 or 2018. S = stock length (8”), Q = quality length (12”), P = preferred length (15”), M = memorable length (20”), and T = trophy length (25”).




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About the Fish...

Figure 2. Length-weight regression for largemouth bass caught during the 2019 annual survey at Stalker Lake. Stock (S), quality (Q), preferred (P), and memorable (M) size categories are indicated in green. Data are based on 1.3 hours of electro-fishing.


Though the abundance of large-mouth bass has decreased in the past few years, the number of pre-ferred- to memorable-sized fish as increased (Figure 1; Table 1). Two largemouth bass greater than 20” were caught during the 2019 annual survey (Figures 1-2). The longest bass measured 20.27” and weighed 4.79 lb (Figure 2). The average length and weight of largemouth bass caught during the 2019 annual survey was 10.48” and 0.91 lb, respectively. As usual for Stalker Lake, anglers can expect to have excellent fish-ing for largemouth bass during the 2020 fishing season.

S Q

P M



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About the Fish... Sunfish (bluegill, redear sun-fish, green sunfish, and their hybrids) comprise the major-ity of Stalker Lake’s prey base. Sunfish relative abun-dance remained fairly con-stant the 2017 (77%) and 2019 (76%) annual surveys (Figure 3). These relative abundances are much lower than they were in 2012 (91%) and 2013 (85%). While maintaining an ade-quate prey base is vital, fu-ture fishery management will be focused on further reduc-ing Stalker Lake’s sunfish abundance because over-population has resulted in reduced growth rates. Two main factors have contribut-ed to over-population includ-ing prime sunfish spawning habitat, and dense vegetative cover.

Figure 3. Relative abundance of fish caught during the 2017 and 2019 annual surveys at Stalker Lake. No survey was performed in 2018. Sunfish comprised a majority of the catch in both years, and a higher pro-portion of redear sunfish was caught in 2019.

Sunfish

2017 2019

86%

77%

10% 21%

76%

76%



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About the Fish... Sunfish continued... Bluegill, redear sunfish, green sunfish, and their hybrids all naturally reproduce in Stalker Lake, making the sunfish population size difficult to manage. Largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, and channel catfish prey upon sunfish, but these three species alone are not able to control the sunfish population. Therefore, biologists tried to periodically stock two larger predators (tiger muskie and saugeye). However, these two spe-cies got fished out of the lake before they could make a difference; thus, stocking was discontin-ued, once again leaving bass and catfish to try to control the sunfish population. To exacerbate the issue, predation is hindered by dense vegetative cover that provides several hiding places for sun-fish. Grass carp will be stocked in the next few years to help control (eat) the rooted aquatic vegetation, which should allow the predators to eat more sunfish. Higher consumption of sunfish should al-low bluegill, redear sunfish, green sunfish, and their hybrids to grow faster.

A higher proportion of redear sunfish and a lower proportion of bluegill were caught in 2019 (Figure 3). Future management will continue to focus on trying to shift a larger portion of the prey base from blue-gill to redear sunfish because redear sun-fish have a lower reproductive potential than bluegill. Furthermore, redear sunfish can grow to larger sizes than bluegill, and surveyed Stalker Lake anglers have re-ported redear sunfish are more aggres-sive. On average, redear sunfish sampled during the 2019 annual survey measured 5.32” and weighed 0.11lb, whereas bluegill were only 4.12” and 0.05lb. The largest redear sunfish and bluegill caught were 8.50” (0.40lb) and 8.47” (0.37lb), respec-tively.



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Channel catfish relative abundance was similar between 2017 (3.99%) and 2019 (4.33%; Figure 3). The av-erage size of catfish caught during the 2019 annual survey was 11.50” (0.64 lb), with the largest fish measuring 22.48” and weighing 4.40 lb. Ten pound channel catfish are not uncommon in Stalker Lake.

About the Fish... Channel catfish



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Master Angler Awards

State Records

stalker lake fish survey summary survey... · stalker lake was constructed in 1947 by damming chief...

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