squaw fish at Englebright

I was at Englebright the past weekend with a guy, who will remain nameless.
I don't  want him to to be associated with me, he probably wouldn't go fishing with me again.
First day hooked up with a nice brown, didn't get it in the boat, thought this is going to be fun. Near the of the day hooked my first squaw fish, not knowing what it was I kept it. I started to question my decision when I couldn't stand the smell and let it go. Man do they ever stink. After that I couldn't catch anything but squaw fish. It isn't something to be proud of when you're fishing buddy calls says you should change your screen name to the "carpster"!
Are these things in other lake near the Bay Area? I'd like to know so I can avoid them.
Mike

I've fished Englebright, Quite a bit never caught anything but trout and bass, What were you using?

Wow read 86 times and only two responces. O.K. those things are all over the place. I catch a lot of them in the delta when I cast for stripers. Whats funny and a pain is they can swallow a rather large crank bait with there small mouth and its a pain getting it out. If you run into the ones that are 10 to 15 pounds it fun but disapointing when you get them in.

I was using a silver broken back rapala. Trout, bass and of course squaw fish were all going for it.

From what I've read squaw fish can endanger just about any species.
How the heck did they get here and what can be done to get rid of them?

How the heck did they get here and what can be done to get rid of them? 

Unlike the bass and Browns they are probably native

These fish pose a big threat to salmon in the colombia river, enough that a bounty was paid to bring their population down. Is any agency tracking them in our local waters?


"The Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. agency that wholesales power generated by federal dams in the Columbia River Basin, has estimated that in one reservoir alone these three species consume 2.7 million juvenile salmonids (salmon and steelhead trout) annually. Squawfish took the lion’s share—an estimated 78 percent."

Pikeminnow or squawfish are native to many CA systems. But unfortunately, they have an advantage over most salmonids when it comes to ability to tolerate & survive in the conditions man has created in these systems, due to dams and other water diversion projects.
But yeah, in the systems where they aren't native...shoot 'em dead IMO. 

http://www.pikeminnow.org/info.html