Posts: 117
Location: champaign, illinois | Folks, problem was in the spillway only and not near the numbers that have been spread around. Below is the response sent out by IDNR lake biologist Mike Mounce.
"there is no evidence that any significant number of fish were lost
on the lake. Given the high visibility of dead muskie below the
spillway, any significant mortality on the lake side of the dam should
have been highly evident. There were several good catches of muskie on
the lake, with the two IMTT tournaments having decent catches, 22 and 14
fish. Jim Saric came down and shot a televison show and did VERY well
for large fish. The muskies in the lake were likely highly stressed,
like the muskies below the spillway, but there was no evidence of
significant mortality. There are many things that affect catch rates of
any species other than population density, with stress being one of many
significant factors.
Handling mortality below the spillway was likely a significant
contributor to the some of the death and certainly more education is
always warranted, however, I will stand strong about the primary stress
for the kill being the extended spawning season. We see the fish during
this period across years and they literally beat themselves up,
resulting in obvious infections and some death. This post-spawn
mortality is an annual event and this year was obviously worse than
normal. Yes, fishing results were better than normal from fall through
winter, just up to the spawning season when there is a normal lull in
the action, but most of the fish were dying just after spawning season,
which again is an annual occurrence. The mortality did protract into
early summer, but catch rates were much lower for a considerable time
prior to this."
As to the problem of posting to our message board we had to make it a login only board because of SPAMbots. Try signing up again and/or get in touch with the Outdoor Network guys as some folks do have problems because of things I know nothing about.
Jay Meeker - Lake Shelbyville Muskie Club |
