By Louie Stout

You gotta give Indiana DNR credit for thinking outside the box with its unique project at the Tri-Lakes Chain located north of Columbia City, Ind.

The lakes consist of Round, Cedar and Little Cedar, where area anglers complain about the abundance of small bass and lack of quality.

While the DNR often considers reducing the size limit on these types of fisheries, District Fisheries Biologist Tyler Delauder wants to try something else – remove 1,000 small bass and relocate them to Roush Reservoir, better known as Huntington Reservoir, where bass populations are low.

“We’ve got an abundance of 8-13.5 inch bass in that lake,” he explains. There are eight-year-old bass that average only 13.8 inches,” explains Delauder. “On our other natural lakes, a fish that old averages 17-18 inches.”

The multi-year project will be the topic of discussion at a public meeting tomorrow (April 25) in Columbia City. The meeting will be held at the Thorncreek Township Fire Department, 821 E 500 N. From 7-8:30 p.m. ET, DNR fisheries biologists will introduce the project, explain its goals, share data and anticipated results, and then answer questions.

Delauder believes that removing some of the numerous small bass will allow those bass remaining in Tri-Lakes to grow faster with less competition and create more of a balance in the fishery.

Huntington Reservoir should also benefit, as the Tri-Lakes bass headed there have a chance to thrive and contribute to that fishery.

Delauder says that he’s not aware of a similar project conducted in Indiana.

“Based upon our data, we’ll take out 1,000 bass and monitor the gamefish populations to make sure we aren’t harming the fishery,” the biologist adds.

Delauder will gather the fish through electro-fish during the day time yet this spring.

“We’re hoping to get volunteers to help us get the fish on our truck for transport to Roush,” he says.

The plan calls for each fish going to Huntington to be jaw-tagged with hope that when anglers catch them there, they will contact the DNR and provide data that will help biologists evaluate the program.

“Local anglers have wanted us to improve the size of largemouth bass at Tri-Lakes for several years,” says Delauder, “We hope this project will allow us to do that.”

To learn more about the project, see wildlife.IN.gov/fishing/largemouth-bass. To learn more about the open meeting, see events.IN.gov/event/tri-lakes-open-meeting.

If you can’t attend the meeting and would like additional information, email D3Fish@dnr.IN.gov.