Other People use Bluegrass F&W area besides fishermen

[Moveon]

There are a lot of other uses for the waters and property at Bluegrass F&W Area.

Kayaks are popular and as canoes and even rubber float boats. Although you are technically not allowed to swim in the water at Bluegrass F&W. If you use these facilities thank the fisherman and hunters who pay extra taxes on their hunting and fishing equipment to help pay for buying the land and funding the upkeep of places like the Bluegrass Fish & Wildlife Area. They pay these taxes when they buy fishing licenses or pay for a boat sticker for their boat to be on IN waters. Lake enhancement fees are used to pay for the IN reservoirs like Patoka Lake and Monroe Lake. And each time a hunter buys ammunition he or she pays an extra tax to the State or Federal Government. This is because of the passage of the Pittman Robertson Act years ago by the US Congress.

The parking lot and facilities were very crowded yesterday after noon.

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[JustinM]

Bluegrass is getting terribly crowded over the last 2-3 weeks. To crowded for fishing a few days. I have turned around and drove back home after seeing the parking lot three times lately. Anyone else having issues with 10' Jon boats flying by you with there 9.9's wide open? I love all of bluegrass but the CO's have really slacked off patrolling there lately. I had one guy with his fold up lawn chair on the ramp. Next to him was his huge cooler further out on the ramp with 5 poles as he called them cast out all over the ramp. I let him know I am going to back down. He tells me he will move when he feels like it and will move his lines when he checks his bait. The people have been bad up there lately for me.

[Moveon]

Justin: You are so right. I've encountered the same thing at most all the launch ramps. People parking their lawn chairs right in the middle of the concrete launch ramps.

I feel like calling the CO's or the local sheriff's dispatch who can dispatch the CO to your location. But they would almost have to be there 24/7. And they may have to learn to speak Spanish so that they can communicate with some of the people there. Como se yomo? How do you say "let me see your fishing license" in Spanish? Communication with people who don't speak English or understand English is difficult. But there are a lot of English speaking folks that don't know the rules.

I've turned my boat around many a times and went to another ramp or just went back home when it's too crowded. Weekends are the worst. But I'm finding that weekdays can be very crowded as well especially after 3:30 pm.

That's why I like to fish in early March and late Oct when the crowds have died down and I have the lake almost to myself. That's when it's really enjoyable.

Right now I'm going to just take the boat out and joy ride and take pictures. The good thing about fishing just for crappie is that you don't need much of the lake to catch fish. I don't have to move around like when I used to bass fish. I can sit on a drop off or deep water honey hole all day and save a lot of gas.

Bluegrass is getting terribly crowded over the last 2-3 weeks. To crowded for fishing a few days. I have turned around and drove back home after seeing the parking lot three times lately. Anyone else having issues with 10' Jon boats flying by you with there 9.9's wide open? I love all of bluegrass but the CO's have really slacked off patrolling there lately. I had one guy with his fold up lawn chair on the ramp. Next to him was his huge cooler further out on the ramp with 5 poles as he called them cast out all over the ramp. I let him know I am going to back down. He tells me he will move when he feels like it and will move his lines when he checks his bait. The people have been bad up there lately for me.

[Moveon]

I do wish that Mike Kellner and or Gordon Woods would encourage those guys to go slower. If not they IDNR may think about restricting the three main pits to trolling motor only. Which means that the experiment of letting people go on these lakes with big motors at idle speed has failed.

Remember it was a trolling motor only environment and many of the larger small lakes like Hovey lake had 10 HP motor size limits.

My main fear with guys going fast it that they will eventually resend the use of larger gas motors on our smaller IN lakes that I want to fish.

I've got a smaller 35 hp motor which was too big to fish on the 10 HP limited lakes. Until recently. I lobbied on line for the IDNR to go with the idle speed regulations and I was very happy to see them go with the idle speed only at the three larger pits at Bluegrass.

But guys we better stay within the rules or it will ruin it for everyone else.

The number of boats on Bluegrass has increased tremendously since they allowed us to use gas motors there. I hope that people are reasonable and follow the rules.

Until then I hope that Mike and the other CO's have a talk with the violator and give them a warning.

One of the main reasons for just restricting the motor size or to limit the boat to trolling motor's only is that it was much easier to enforce. Trying to enforce the speed limit of idle speed is harder to do. What exactly is idle speed on a 300 HP merc vs a 9.9 HP gas motor. Both will idle down but one's going to idle a bit faster than the other perhaps. So where do you draw the line? And how accurate is the measurement of their speed. Whats the accuracy and the precision of the laser speed measuring device and how much lee way should the CO give to us before they write a ticket.

These are the questions that the CO's have to ask and deal with when they have to go to court to testify about why they gave someone a ticket for going too fast.

Would it be better for everyone using these waters to just keep it slow? I think it would be better but you know that some will get in a hurry. These guys in the larger boats are used to bigger lakes where they can open the motor up and go zooming around the lake. That's half the fun of bass fishing tournaments IMHO. I like to see the boats race too. It's exciting. Much more exciting than spending 10 minutes to reach your fishing spot at idle speed at Bluegrass Pit.

And it's not just bass tournament fishermen that like to go fast. All the boat drivers will want to go fast at times. Even those fishing for fun like to open up the motor from time to time. I am going full open at KY lake and Patoka Lake. I like the wind in my hair too even if it's only going 20 mph. LOL

Bluegrass is getting terribly crowded over the last 2-3 weeks. To crowded for fishing a few days. I have turned around and drove back home after seeing the parking lot three times lately. Anyone else having issues with 10' Jon boats flying by you with there 9.9's wide open? I love all of bluegrass but the CO's have really slacked off patrolling there lately. I had one guy with his fold up lawn chair on the ramp. Next to him was his huge cooler further out on the ramp with 5 poles as he called them cast out all over the ramp. I let him know I am going to back down. He tells me he will move when he feels like it and will move his lines when he checks his bait. The people have been bad up there lately for me.

[Moveon]

Man if they did that to me and I was in a hurry to fish I would actually think about running the SOB over with my boat trailer. Well I said I'd think about it, but I don't think I would actually do that. More than likely if I could not get him to move by asking nicely I'd have to call the Sheriff and request that a Conservation Officer be dispatched to the area to take care of the Launch Ramp Squatters. LOL

Just I've had that happen a lot at some of the pits with gravel launch ramps. People fish right on the ramp and park their lawn chairs right in the way. Some even park their vehicles on the ramp. I've seen one family with their pickup truck backed down the ramp and parked in the middle of the ramp with them sitting on the tail gate and fishing out of the back of the truck right next to the water's edge. They never even acted like they saw me with my boat trailer. I just turned around and left that pit for greener pastures.

Some people just don't want to share the launch ramp with the boaters.

Even if the IDNR put up signs warning against hogging the launch ramps some people would not read them or just ignore them. That's why I too wish that the CO would do more to move them out of the way. Someone need to educate them about launch ramp etiquette. The last time I was trying to move someone from the launch ramp at LOON Pit so that I could launch my boat I got attacked by their dog. When I told the CO about that he didn't say much at all. He just said that they are allowed to train their dogs. When I said thats true but only on the North side of Boonville NewHarmony Road and he agreed. But he was busy at the time writing his report and didn't seem to want to do anything about the incident.

I think that as the number of people using Bluegrass F&W area increases there are going to be some more incidents like yours and mine.

People should NOT be allow to hog the launch ramp and just set up camp in the middle of the launch ramp for hours at a time.

Bluegrass is getting terribly crowded over the last 2-3 weeks. To crowded for fishing a few days. I have turned around and drove back home after seeing the parking lot three times lately. Anyone else having issues with 10' Jon boats flying by you with there 9.9's wide open? I love all of bluegrass but the CO's have really slacked off patrolling there lately. I had one guy with his fold up lawn chair on the ramp. Next to him was his huge cooler further out on the ramp with 5 poles as he called them cast out all over the ramp. I let him know I am going to back down. He tells me he will move when he feels like it and will move his lines when he checks his bait. The people have been bad up there lately for me.

[Moveon]

The folks of Top Sports of Evansville will be holding Kayaking Demonstrations out at Blue Grass Pit's main launch ramp today. They will be out there early and until around 10 or 11 am from what I was told.

If you would like to learn more about Kayaks this would be a good time to do so. They will allow you to use one of their kayaks for about 10 to 15 minutes. They sell the more expensive type of Kayaks from what I know.

[Moveon]

The folks of Top Sports of Evansville will be holding Kayaking Demonstrations out at Blue Grass Pit's main launch ramp today. They will be out there early and until around 10 or 11 am from what I was told.

If you would like to learn more about Kayaks this would be a good time to do so. They will allow you to use one of their kayaks for about 10 to 15 minutes. They sell the more expensive type of Kayaks from what I know.

I went over to check this out and the guys from Top Sports were there at 11 am. But there were not many of their customers there to try out the kayaks.

Canoe Evansville of Wesselman's park were there as well. They had a lot of people out on Loon Pit at 11 am in canoes. I saw them coming back from the South end of Loon Pit when I was leaving. I saw their trailer in the parking lot as it sticks out like a sore thumb with all the advertising on the side of the truck.