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By Louie Stout

Indiana Habitat InfoIndiana Habitat Info

The Indiana DNR has made some changes to its website to include real-time tracking of fishing stockings and locations of planted brush on Hoosier reservoirs.

The stocking site lists every fish that has been stocked in modern times. You can search by species, county, lake and year.

“If you catch a fish in a lake and didn’t know if that specie was in that lake, you can look it up and see when the last stocking occurred,” said District Fisheries Biologist Tyler Delauder.

IDNR Report

Brown TroutBrown Trout

The DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife stocked roughly 4,500 brown trout into northern Indiana streams in early January.  

Most fish ranged between 8 to 14 inches at the time of release. Indiana obtained the trout from Illinois last year when they were approximately 3 inches long. Mixsawbah State Fish Hatchery in Walkerton raised the trout until they were close to an average of 10 inches long. 

The six streams stocked included Pigeon River (Steuben/LaGrange counties), Solomon Creek (Elkhart County), Little Elkhart River (LaGrange/Elkhart counties), Rowe Eden Ditch (LaGrange/Elkhart counties), Cobus Creek (Elkhart County), and Little Kankakee River (LaPorte County). 

The Tackle Shack will hold its “Spring Open House” Friday at the Middlebury store.

The program will run from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. with seminars by Heath Wagner (4:30 p.m.), Garmin Electronics representative Brendan Scarpone (5:30 p.m.) and Mike Raber (6:30 p.m.).

The Twisted Tiki Food Truck will be offering food from noon to 7 p.m.

Shop owner Brendon Sutter promises “massive sales” and drawings throughout the day. For more information, call the Tackle Shack at 574-825-0802.

IDNR Report

Indiana Conservation Officers Tim Janowski and Bryan Beneke have been selected as the 2022 District Officers of the Year.

Janowski oversees District 10 includes Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Newton, Jasper, Starke, and Pulaski counties. Beneke works in District two that includes Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben, Wells, and Whitley counties.

Janowski is assigned to Lake County where he has served since 1998. Beneke is assigned to Allen County where he has been a conservation officer since 2015.

By Louie Stout

Angler with 2 burbotAngler with 2 burbot

A few years ago, we rarely heard of burbot, a freshwater member of the cod family, being caught in Lake Michigan.

Yet, in the past two months, the Indiana record has been broken three times.

The first occurred in December when Scott Skafar of Valparaiso caught two over 10 pounds, breaking the 1990 record of 7 pounds, 11 ounces. His biggest, 10.2 pounds, remained the record until last week when Phil Duracz of Chesterton broke it with an 11.4 pounder.

“I won’t be surprised if the record is broken again this year,” said Duracz, who catches them regularly and fishes Lake Michigan often during the winter. “I believe there are some 14 to 16 pounders out there.”

Adult burbot primarily feed on other fish species such as round goby, sculpin, and yellow perch. Native to Lake Michigan, they are sometimes called eelpout, lawyer or poor man’s lobster and have a single chin-barbel or whisker, similar to catfish whiskers.

Indiana Lake Michigan Biologist Ben Dickinson said he doesn’t believe there is a population explosion of burbot, but rather ideal conditions for catching them.

“First, we’ve had some really warm and calm weather the past few years so people can get out on Lake Michigan in late December and January when the fish are in close.