Mike Axsom, Can you give a quick opinion

[thompmd]

Mike,
How is the current bluegill fishing on West Boggs. Thanks. Thinking about coming down for the weekend with my wife.

[MikeAxsom]

Boy. That seems to be a wild card. I talked to maybe 20 people about their fishing over the weekend and got a lot of differnt opinions. I'll share a couple from each extreme. Two young men I talked to didn't catch anything and found that to be a problem. They fished from a boat for about 4 hours in their first visit to the lake. They were fishing for bass from a johnboat with no trolling motor or electroncis of any kind. Two other men I talked to fished about 4 hours from the bank on the same day, using live bait. They said they caught a fish every cast and most were bluegills, a few wer bass and one channel catfish. They didn't keep anything so I only had their word. Most people are reporting pretty good action on bluegill, but smaller sizes than we saw last year. I think it mostly depends on how you fish and what time of day. Mid-day fishing is pretty tough here in warm weather.

[thompmd]

Mike,
Thank you and we will see you this weekend(weather permitting).
We have visited the lake for several years now and agree about the size decline. We still catch plenty and enjoy the restuarant and the hotel near Montgomery.

[panfish]

I talked to some friends that live by the lake. They fished last week. They said you could catch as many bluegills as you want but the largest they were finding was about 7". They were commenting about the quality of the panfishing being really down this year. If you are going to fish and want to keep some, I would recommend going for catfish. That is the only thing I have heard that is going well.

Mike,

I have heard the DNR has been out the last several Tuesdays. What are they finding? Has there been any more talk about adding a predator like the stripers or wipers?

[MikeAxsom]

Yup. I'm also hearing a lot about channel cat fishing being on the upswing. That seemed to start last year in numbers and this year I'm hearing more about size.

IDNR has been doing some electro fishing as part of the ongoing gizzard shad research project related to our winter drawdowns. Unfortunately, what they found this year was a LOT of shad. The warm winter weather this year did not allow for any significant winterkill, and the critters seem to have gotten off good spawns this year and last. So their numbers are up, and that is going to have ever more impact on some other things. It is why we are talking about reductions in Bluegill sizes. Bass are growing like crazy with all the shad forage, with 6-8 pounders being the norm now in tournaments. But this is coming at the expense of young bass survival, and that will eventually cause a major crash in bass fishing overall. The recent electro fishing confirmed the loss of juvenile bass.

I just don’t know if or when things will change to indicate the introduction of another predator. It will not be before the current population of largemouth bass has been drawn down to a much greater degree. And the winter drawdown/winterkill project seems to be extending that time more than we might have seen otherwise. One thing I expect to see soon is the combination of a very large shad population combined with a cold winter, and we’ll see a massive winterkill take place. When that happens the whole set of dynamics between species will change like an earthquake, and then begin the buildup over again.

[thompmd]

Mike,
Do we need the $20 state permit to fish Boggs?? We booked Gasthofs for Friday/Saturday night so make sure they empty the fish carcasses so we have room to put all of ours in there hahaha

[MikeAxsom]

I'm not sure what $20 permit you are asking aobut. You need a fishing license, and an Boat Registration. You don't need their launch permit or gate entrance pass/permit. I hope you do fill the fish cleaning station. Let me know how you do.

[thompmd]

>I'm not sure what $20 permit
>you are asking aobut. You
>need a fishing license, and
>an Boat Registration. You don't
>need their launch permit or
>gate entrance pass/permit. I hope
>you do fill the fish
>cleaning station. Let me know
>how you do.

Mike,
We did come down and fish Boggs. We caught lots of bluegills. I am guessing a 100?? but most were small. I do agree with one of the posts above that mentioned the size getting smaller each year. Everyone at Boggs we have met does a nice job keeping the park and facilities up and it is appreciated but I think we will likely give the lake some time for the bluegill fishing to come back.

[MikeAxsom]

Sounds like your experience is on track with what we are seeing overall. I'm glad you like the park and are able to see the other things we try to do. It is not likely that the Bluegill fishing will come back any time soon. What we are seeing is a direct result of the shad problem, and that will get worse rather than better. Someday a total renovation will probably be done, and then the bluegill glory days will return. At least until someone decides to bring the shad back again. That cycle will probably never end, which is one reason we are working so hard to provide some other forms of recreation here other than just fishing.

[Moose1am]

As long as you have a healthly population of gizzard shad they will compete with the young bluegill for the same food. Gizzard shad filter feed and they remove a lot of the food lower food chain out of the lake and tie it up into gizzard shad biomass. Only the very huge bass can eat a full grown gizzard shad from what I understand. Patoka Lake use to have large bluegills and good numbers of gill before the lake had Gizzard Shad introduced. If only they were threadfin shad and not Gizzard Shad. Only Gibson and maybe turtle creek with their warm water power plant hot water discharges into those lake can sustain a threadfin shad population though our cold IN winters. But hey with global warming being declared a reality these days maybe we can plant some threadfins in the IN water and they may survive year round.

Gills suspend down amoung the trees and if there water is very clear you can find some big sunfish in 20 or 30ft of water nesting. A rock quarry near Dawson Spring, KY had some huge bluegills that spawned on a steep 45 deg slope that entered the rock quarry and dropped down into 50ft of water. I found the big gills nests in 20ft of water while scuba diving in the rock quarry. But that was way back in the 1970's. Today it's sport diving quarry full of big catfish. When I dove it there were huge bass that were mostly 3 to 4 lbs in size and I also saw one big 8 to 10 # that was hanging out all by herself. She would not let me get very close to her and there was no way I could catch her with just fins.

Regards,

Moose1am

[panfish]

Very large black bass in Indiana are not big enough to eat full grown gizzard shad.

[Moose1am]

OK Make that half grown Gizzard Shad then. :)

I forgot just how big Gizzard Shad can grow.

Last night while cruising around Blue Grass Fish and Wildlife Area I noticed the DNR shock boat out doing it's thing. I dropped by the pit they were working at and watched them in action with my binoculars. They were pulling up a lot of gizzard shad. From a distance I first thought that they were bass but when they finally came back to the launch ramp and started counting their catch I got the chance to ask a few questions of the fishery biologist and his coworkers. They were indeed gizzard shad. From the looks of things this small pit off St John's Road is full of these shad. And there were some big shad in there too. The Shad sure can tie up a lot of the lakes biomass for sure.

The DNR creel survey for BG has one question that asks fishermen if they are in favor of stocking Muskie Fish in the pits. I suspect that these big toothy critters could help control the Gizzard Shad populations if they could live and reproduce in these x coal mined pit's waters.

I am setup now for slow trolling crank baits and I heard some potentially good news last night. The DNR may consider allowing the use of gasoline engines at Blue Grass's Big three Pits but only at Idle Speed. Rumor has it that this is just in the preliminary idea phase right now but if it were to become true it would not take place until next January.

I know that I have mixed reactions about allowing the use of gasoline motors on these lakes. I would love to be able to use my gas motor to launch and recover the boat. That would make this job so much easier for me. My boat trailer and boat are just too big and heavy and tall for me to launch it easily by myself. Actually launching is not a problem but recovery can be a pain if it's windy.

I wonder if the use of gas engines would overload the water with too much gas and oil. Being only 200 acres to 90 acres in size (Loon and Otter)they would be a danger of too many boats putting too much oil and gasoline into the water over time.

And what exactly is idle speed? Some people think it's 5 mph and other think it's 1 mph. And then there will always be some that go 100 mph no matter what the speed limits are.

I know that the DNR favors allowing only 10 hp motors on the smaller IN lakes. So I was curious as to if this would be what would be used on the larger Pits at Blue Grass F&W Area. So I asked Dan Carnahan last night if they would implement the 10 hp motor size limit on BG pits. He told me that they were thinking of just using the idle speed limit and not using the motor size limit. That would be a big change if they do implement this at Blue Grass.

You may wish to contact the Sugar Ridge Fish and Wildlife Guys to check this rumor out and see if this is true and if or when it may become new policy.

But if it's true it will allow me to slow troll better with my 35 hp johnson motor. I am all setup to troll from the driver seat now. Maybe someday I can troll for some big muskies?

Regards,

Moose1am