Lake Waveland

I heard they had a fish kill at Waveland any one else know anytthing about it?

I've heard that they treated the lake to get rid some of the grass and lots of the bigger fish floated. :(

I heard the same thing and my father was going to go down there this week and asked me if I heard this......I called lake waveland and spoke to a gentleman and he told me that the reason the few fish died was because of the high temps a few weeks ago and low oxygen content in the weedbeds caused a few of the fish to die. He told me that they had not sprayed the lake and a guy was bass fishing yesterday(Tuesday)and told him he had caught a dozen??

I do not know how accurate this is but it IS what I was told. I have not spoken to my father who was supposed to have went Wednesday/Thursday to see if he went and if he heard or saw anything but he was likely bluegill fishing.

Joe,

Here is the scoop. Yes, there was a fish kill. The majority of the fish affected were bass. Best estimate I've heard was around 1,000 fish.

No, they did not treat the weeds. However, there was a weed die-off that they believe triggered the kill. Theory is matted algae blocking out the light to rooted vegetation underneath causing them to die off. This followed shortly thereafter by the matted algae dieing off. Subsequent decomposition put a big hurt on the overall oxygen in the water. Fish were sampled and sent to Purdue pathology diagnostic lab for testing though I don't believe results have come back yet.

In the big scheme of things they don't believe the kill will be that big of a deal given the huge numbers of bass in the lake beforehand. I haven't been back out there since the kill but might roll over that way this weekend to check things out for myself.

-T9

That's make sense, decomposed vegetation giving off CO2 killing the fish. What had happened really helped the lake if the majority of them were among the god only know number of dinks.

Thanks for the response , My wife and I went over a couple months ago great place to learn to fish a worm, Ma loved it

That's why the weeds should be treated earlier so that they don't create such a biomass that suddenly dies off creating this problem. Early season treatments would prevent this problem while still allowing for some vegetation. Treatment of vegetation will also improve bass growth.

Dense weeds make foraging difficult for bass and allow for too many young bass to survive thus leaving a lot of skinny small bass with slow growth rates. Some vegetation management should take place before this happens again next year.

Just curious, but were any muskies reported in the fish kill? I know they've been stocking them in Waveland and hope they're still doing okay, along with a healthy bass population.

Thanks.