West Boggs

[bkehl]

I will be headed for West Boggs in a couple weeks, How are the lake conditions, is it getting near summer pool?

Thanks
Bkehl

[MikeAxsom]

The lake is 100% back to normal pool level. I posted that a week ago, but I included information on how to get to the park's web site and the post got erased. I keep forgetting how protective fishin.com is about those links. Maybe you can get there though, if you remember that the site name is the same at the park name, with a dot com.

[MissinTheFishin]

The lake may be back to normal but the fishing sure is not.
I remember the days when you could actually catch fish there. Now it's few and far between. And when you do there arent many for keeping.
Maybe I just dont get there enough anymore, but I hear it from a lot of guys that spend time there.

[TR21Bassin]

We were there Friday and it was still high and was very muddy.

Has it cleared up any?

Charlie

[WMAMOS]

MissintheFishin,

What exactly do you fish for at Boggs? I haven't been down there in a couple of years but the bass fishing was hot then and as I understand it was hot last year.

Are you a local trying to put the cat back in the bag?

[Hoosier Hunter]

I've only had one day there when I didn't have a limit and that day I got skunked for some reason. Still #1 in my book.

[MissinTheFishin]

I am a local, and I wish I had a cat to put back in the bag.
I have a close pal who has a little permanent camp set up there (a nice little 3 room tavel camper) and he fishes the lake from boat and land. I have been up there with him several times the past few years and the fishing seems to be worse and worse every time I go.
I fish for bass mainly there, as I like to get my crappie at either Beaver lake or Patoka or one of the strip pits between Dubois and Pike county.
I know several people who feel the same way I do. All I can say is if you are still having luck there then that is wonderful for you, and keep doing what you are doing.

Now if you want some good slab crappie and you know someone who owns land on Beaver lake (outside Jasper IN) then you need to head up here in about three to 4 weeks.

Any other pan fish in mind, there is a well hidden local spot here that I just dont know if I would broadcast for everyone to see ;P
Anyone from the area or near by let me know and I can give you google maps coordinates.

MissintheFishin,

What exactly do you fish for at Boggs? I haven't been down there in a couple of years but the bass fishing was hot then and as I understand it was hot last year.

Are you a local trying to put the cat back in the bag?

[DSPCHAMY]

I fish for bass mainly there, as I like to get my crappie at either Beaver lake or Patoka or one of the strip pits between Dubois and Pike county.
I know several people who feel the same way I do. All I can say is if you are still having luck there then that is wonderful for you, and keep doing what you are doing.


Maybe the reason your fishing is down is becuase you have killed all the fish in the area of the lake that you are going. Maybe its because people are eating the keepers instead of letting them go that your catch rate is down. I know plenty of farm ponds with no size limit where you can harvest all the bass you want. Why don't you try some of those if you are looking to eat bass.

[MissinTheFishin]

Hmm, I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am pretty much a catch a release kind of guy. I keep panfish when I plan on having a fry, but that's pretty much it. I have not kept a bass that I have caught in several years. I always have the luck of catching them small or large. I never get a good eating size.
I would rather keep Crappie and red ear and blue gill over bass, though I do love to fish them for the fishings sake.

Maybe the reason your fishing is down is becuase you have killed all the fish in the area of the lake that you are going. Maybe its because people are eating the keepers instead of letting them go that your catch rate is down. I know plenty of farm ponds with no size limit where you can harvest all the bass you want. Why don't you try some of those if you are looking to eat bass.

[MikeAxsom]

There is really no doubt that the bluegill; and crappie fisheries at West Boggs are being seriously harmed by the abundance of Gizzard Shad. While there are still opportunities for these species, they are not nearly at the level they were prior to 2000, when the shad were re-introduced. There are still some years that are better than others, but we know that overall, shad will diminish these species first. I am hoping that the fact that we have the lake back to full pool early this year may allow better nesting conditions for bluegill; as opposed to the rising water conditions they have found at nesting time for the past few years. But nothing is going to make it possible to have gizzard shad and a quality pan fish fishery in the same water.

At the same time, study data shows that the Largemouth Bass fishery is producing some very large fish, and should continue to do so for several more years. This fishery too will be harmed by the presence of shad eventually. The larger bass actually thrive on the abundant shad forage; but we lose the young bass to competition. Surveys show that is happening now, so at some point in the future the numbers of adult bass will decline and there will not be enough young bass surviving to make up the difference.

As I said here before, I think the answer is another total renovation. But until some solution can be found to prevent shad re-introduction again, that it not going to be seen as a cost effective option. The only viable solution seems to be to educate the public about the problems caused by unauthorized movement of fish from water body to water body, which is how shad get redistributed. As you may see here from time to time, these comments often raise arguments from people who do not want to accept the realities of all this, and from that it appears that the education effort is just not working. That means the renovation project is not yet going to be on the table.

[DSPCHAMY]

Hmm, I think there has been a misunderstanding. I am pretty much a catch a release kind of guy. I keep panfish when I plan on having a fry, but that's pretty much it. I have not kept a bass that I have caught in several years. I always have the luck of catching them small or large. I never get a good eating size.
I would rather keep Crappie and red ear and blue gill over bass, though I do love to fish them for the fishings sake.

My Bad then, thanks for being a catch and release fisherman. Your earlier post made it sound like you were eating keepers. Eat all the panfish you want, they are appropriately named.

Thanks,

[Moose1am]

Good lucky educating the public on why it's not good to put shad back into any lake.

Not everyone will listen to the X perts like the IDNR Fishery Biologists.

I would never put shad in a body of water.

I witnessed a guy who has just put some Oscars into a strip pit that I fish. I didn't see him put these fish in the water but I saw the fish at the edge of the water where they were still swimming around in the spot that they were released. He told me that he has dumped them into the water when I told him that I saw these strange fish in the shallow waters along the edge of the lake. He was bragging about doing this to me. I could not ID this guy but did manage to write down his License plate number. But I lost the note with the tag number on it. I figured out that these are tropical fish and that the cold winter waters would kill them but what if they could survive our winters and get established.

People never ever dump your aquarium fish into any waters in the USA. Never take fish from one lake and put them into another lake without first checking with the IDNR before hand.

This is how exotic fish get spread around and take over lakes.

Gizzard shad are harmful to smaller fish because they eat all the food in a lake before the smaller fish can. They deplete the nutrients in the lake and tie up all the biomass in the Gizzard Shad bodies. If you read some of the IDNR Fishery Survey reports you will see that they net a lot of biomass consisting of gizzard Shad. That means that there are smaller bluegills and crappie in the lake.

Fish get stunted when they can't get enough to eat. Patoka Lake uses to have an excellent population of big bluegills and was well know for it's gills. Today that has declined every years due to the present of gizzard shad. These shad have eaten all the bluegills food and now the bluegill are smaller than before.

The lakes I fish are full of gizzard shad. I often see them swimming in a tight circle at the surface of the lake. They eat the same small invertebrates and aquatic insects that the other game fish feed on. The crappie only average 8" to 8.5" in these lakes and that could be due to the present of gizzard shad and too many crappie. Crappie can breed quickly in these small waters and over exceed the carrying capacity of these waters. Thus they get stunted. Their growth rates declines when they don't have enough food for them all to eat. Culling out more crappie or putting in muskie to eat the Gizzard shad may help. That's what IDNR is suggesting for these lakes.

At Patoka they stocked Stripers in the hopes that they would eat the larger gizzard shad.

I wish we lived about 10 to 20 deg further south and the had threadfin shad in our waters instead of gizzard shad. Threadfin shad don't grow so large and can be food for even the smaller bass and crappie. That way you get much bigger fish and much faster growth rates.

It's too bad we can't bio engineer some threadfin shad that can survive in colder waters.

There is really no doubt that the bluegill; and crappie fisheries at West Boggs are being seriously harmed by the abundance of Gizzard Shad. While there are still opportunities for these species, they are not nearly at the level they were prior to 2000, when the shad were re-introduced. There are still some years that are better than others, but we know that overall, shad will diminish these species first. I am hoping that the fact that we have the lake back to full pool early this year may allow better nesting conditions for bluegill; as opposed to the rising water conditions they have found at nesting time for the past few years. But nothing is going to make it possible to have gizzard shad and a quality pan fish fishery in the same water.

At the same time, study data shows that the Largemouth Bass fishery is producing some very large fish, and should continue to do so for several more years. This fishery too will be harmed by the presence of shad eventually. The larger bass actually thrive on the abundant shad forage; but we lose the young bass to competition. Surveys show that is happening now, so at some point in the future the numbers of adult bass will decline and there will not be enough young bass surviving to make up the difference.

As I said here before, I think the answer is another total renovation. But until some solution can be found to prevent shad re-introduction again, that it not going to be seen as a cost effective option. The only viable solution seems to be to educate the public about the problems caused by unauthorized movement of fish from water body to water body, which is how shad get redistributed. As you may see here from time to time, these comments often raise arguments from people who do not want to accept the realities of all this, and from that it appears that the education effort is just not working. That means the renovation project is not yet going to be on the table.