We fished this lake hard in the eighties and again for a short time in the nineties, unless you have you probably would not understand that the fish you are catching now are not what this lake is capable of. What Brian is describing about 22-26" fish is what the lake always was like and kick in the odd 26 to 30" in the fall when they were keying on boatman. In the eighties you could bonk 10 and we still had big fish, in the nineties you could bonk 5 and we still had big fish, they are not there anymore. I do not blame the bonkers, the fish that had enough food to get that big have died of old age. I believe it now takes 5 years for them to get close to the magic 20" and then their done. The dead fish in the pond died from winterkill, back in the 80's and 90's if winter was like last years we always had floaters in the spring.
The shrimp were the key, they are not there like they were, remember in 2004/2005 you would have to scrape your waders and empty your boots at the end of the day. I remember sweeping out the back of the vehicle after most trips. I believe it was the spring of 2005 i emailed Terry Clayton with my concerns that the shrimp were disapearing, i think we got another 50,000 that year. The fish now are starting to look like every other overstocked lake i have fished (Reesor, Beaver Mines, Beauvis ) where it is hard to catch a rainbow over 10". I fear that if the current stocking continues Bullshead will be like all the rest.
All the individuals who worked to get the regs changed did their part to make this lake a quality fishery. The stocking rates have made it a quantity fishery. What i see is that we become blind by the quantity that we catch to realize that it is no longer a quality fishery. The size that we catch here in relation to all the other lakes we catch 10" rainbows also makes us think that this is such a great fishery.
It is a good quantiy fishery and not a great quality fishery like it once was.