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By Louie Stout
With 2018 behind us, what will the New Year deliver for Michiana sportsmen?
As we look back at the previous year’s issues and ahead to a more promising year, we’re left with some questions of what sportsmen might encounter, including questions leftover from 2018.
Here are some of the things for you to ponder:
Perhaps one of the most burning questions – one that has lingered for nearly seven years – is whether the public will ever get a new boating access on Eagle Lake. Although land has been purchased and a DNR plan in place, the Eagle Lake Improvement Association has fought the Michigan agency in courts where the issue has festered for years. The lake association apparently is willing to spend whatever it takes to prevent the access and the DNR continues to drag its feet. Last summer, the DNR stopped parking on its grassy lot due to complaints from the township.
Have Lake of the Woods walleyes grown up? A DNR Survey two years ago showed a good population and those fish should be well above the keeper size this year.
Will we have an ice fishing season that lasts more than a couple weeks, or will we have a late winter that encroaches into a more desirable spring open-water fishery?
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By Louie Stout
Mangus Asks Tournament Groups to Alter Smallmouth Rules During the Spawn
Greg Mangus is encouraging Michiana tournament directors to consider prohibiting smallmouth from being weighed in during the spawning season.
The temporary restriction would help protect the noticeably declining smallmouth populations on lakes where largemouth bass dominate and still provide largemouth opportunities for competing anglers.
Mangus, a South Bend native from Fremont, Ind., said at least two northeast Indiana tournament circuits have adopted the idea of excluding smallmouth during the month of May this year.
He says the idea arose in discussions this winter with other veteran tournament anglers who have seen dwindling smallmouth populations on lakes that get springtime tournament pressure.
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By Louie Stout
Bass Lake WalleyeBass Lake continues to remain a mystery to Hoosier fish biologists.
The 1,345-acre lake near Knox, Ind. is the state’s third largest natural lake yet the fishery is one of its most difficult to manage.
Except for the heavily stocked walleyes and fair crappie and bluegill populations, the lake doesn’t have very good fishing.
In fact, a quick bass survey last summer failed to turn up a bass, although biologists know there are some in there. All natural lakes have largemouth bass, but this one hasn’t been known as a good bass lake for decades.
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By Louie Stout
Did you know that if fishing, hunting and shooting sports were combined as a corporation, it would rank 25th on the Fortune 500 listing – ahead of Microsoft.
That’s what Rob Southwick, president of market research firm Southwick Associates, said after analyzing statistical data from the American Sportfishing Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.
Expenditures in 2016 (the latest of such in-depth national surveys) for hunting, target shooting and fishing gear supported 1.6 million U.S. jobs, provided $72 billion in salaries and wages and generated nearly $20 billion in local, state and federal taxes.