Bluegrass F&W Area Pits offlimits to fishermen until after Jan 21st 2007

During waterfowl hunting season the Big Pits at Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area are closed to fishing.

Just wanted to refresh memories on this.

I called Sugar Ridge and talked to the people up there and confirmed this.

I was going to do a lot of winter fishing this year so it looks like I am going to have to find new fishing holes for this winter.

I have a few already in mind. LOL

It's hard to belive that it's Dec with 60 deg F air temperatures outside. Global Warming?

I spoke to a woman at Sugar Ridge HQ the other day. She informed me that the new rules for Bluegrass F&W area concerning gas motors has NOT been accepted in Indianapolis yet. So all you duck hunters may want to check on this to find out if or when the DNR will start to allow gas motors on these pits down here by Evansville. Evidently they are still reviewing the idea up in INDY.

In a way I have mixed feelings on this issue. While I would like to be able to get around the pits easier using the gas motor these pits are not that big. And as a crappie fisherman who often sits in one spot using the trolling motor I would prefer not to have to fight waves created by boats moving around the pits. At times these pits can have a few boats on them. And if all the boats are all using their gas motors it would create more noise and ruin some of the solitude that we enjoy on these pits when the rules are still Electric Trolling motors only. So if they don't change this rule I may just have to update my electric trolling motors. They make some that fit two electric motors onto the bottom of a gas motor. They attach to the gas motor somehow. I am not sure how these work though. I would think that they would create a lot of drag on the motor if they were left in place while using the gas motor at higher speed. But if they are designed to be the only source of power for the boat while on a particular lake they may be the ticket for these EM only lakes. I would bet that if more people got these mounted on their boats and started racing around the pits these things would be outlawed on the pits or speed limites would be set forth. Since it's harder for the CO's to enforce speed limits the IDNR has in the past just limited the size of the motors. I'd rather they use speed limits as the motor size restrictions limit lots of fishermen from places like Hovey lake, Dogwood Lake and Turtle Creek. There you can't use gas motor larger than 10 hp and I think that REEKS. I don't see why a speed limit can not be enforce on Hovey Lake and then they could allow boats with 35 hp motors to go at idle speed on Hovey Lake. Give out a few tickets and word would get around that when they say idle speed they mean it. Once that is established and people know the rules and the rules will be strictly enforced you can have larger bass boats using these IN lakes more often. We don't have that many places in IN as compared to KY to fish. We need to open the lakes we do have to more fishermen and this simple rule change would accomplish this easily. I wonder if I am alone in this though? Man I will have to sell my gas motor and buy a smaller one before I will ever get to take my boat out and be able to fish Hovey's lake. BTW that lake is too big to just use my ETM.


Regards,

Moose1am