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By Louie Stout
Good fishing isn’t entirely dependent on fish stockings or bag and size limits.
The challenges facing fish managers of today have less to do with those matters and more to do with what is happening on land around our waters.
As in land management.
Admittedly, that topic isn’t as stimulating as reports of big fish catches, large stockings or successful spawns.
But it has a direct affect, and perhaps a serious adverse effect, on the future of successful fishing.
Think about it: water runs off farm fields, parking lots and neighborhood developments, trickles into rivers and ditches and ultimately wind up in lakes connected to those streams. That water carries sediment, phosphates and nitrates, all of which have a negative effect on habitat and water quality, which in turn affects fish, especially during and after the spawn.
Federal, state, and county conservation districts have worked hard for year to get land users to alter their practices that would reduce runoff and allow our waters to improve.
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By Louie Stout
Southwest Michigan waters were well represented in the DNR’s Master Angler program for last season.
Some 35 fish from Berrien County and 7 from Cass County qualified for the state honor.
Anglers receive a patch for catching a fish that meets state minimum requirements and that they submit through a procedure outlined in the annual Fishing Guide.
The 2017 season attracted a lot of entries, as 2,176 anglers representing 24 states and Canada submitted catches recognized in the state's Master Angler program - a significant increase over 1,807 Master Angler fish in 2016.
The program, in place since 1973, has more than doubled since 2014.
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By Louie Stout
Tippecanoe River: Indiana’s Best Kept Secret for Bass, Walleye and Pike
About 50 years ago, my good friend Al Tucker and I waded the Tippecanoe River for rock bass and smallmouth on hot summer afternoons.
We’d slide into cutoff jeans and old sneakers, walk into the water to our waist and cast tiny Rooster Tails and Mepps Spinners into the pools and eddies. We caught a lot of fish every trip.
I haven’t been back since my teenage days, so my assumption has been that urban incursion and pollution has diminished that fabulous fishery over those years.
District fisheries biologist Tom Bacula says that’s not the case.
Last fall, he led a team of fish managers through a major study of the “Tippy” from Oswego, Ind. in Kosciusko County down to Winamac, Ind. in Pulaski County.
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By Louie Stout
As waters slowly recede from Michiana’s 500-year flood, the question remains among anglers: How were river fisheries affected?
We posed that question to area fish managers and none expressed any major concerns - yet.
Biologists say the fact that area rivers and streams pushed out of their banks in February is less threatening than if it occurred a few months later.
“The fact that the water is still cold and that most of the fish have been in their deeper holes is a good thing,” said DNR St. Joseph River biologist Larry Koza. “If it happened a couple of months later, I might be concerned about how it impacted the spawn or the young fish produced during the spawn.”
Northern pike could actually benefit from the higher water because pike like to spawn in flooded backwaters. Those fish should be spawning in the next week or so.
Indiana fisheries biologist Tom Bacula said we could see a high number of young pike (especially on the Kankakee River) produced this year - assuming the young fish hatched in flooded areas can make it back to the main river. Of course, it will be a few years before they reach a legal size.
“Pike lay adhesive eggs that stick to vegetation, buck brush and willows, so they would have plenty of spawning habitat in the flooded areas,” Bacula said.