Anglers who fish the Upper Tippecanoe River Lake Area (UTRLA) might be able to improve their catch by looking at a computer before hitting the water.
A report on fish population surveys conducted last year at six natural lakes north of Columbia City is on the DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) website at http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-UTRLA_Report_2009.pdf.
The report summarizes data collected by DFW fisheries biologists at Big, Crane, Crooked, Goose, Loon, and Old lakes in northern Whitley and southern Noble counties.
These UTRLA lakes lie within the upper reaches of the Tippecanoe River watershed.
The report includes comparisons of largemouth bass and bluegill populations in each lake, data on the overall make-up of fish communities in each lake, estimates and fishing effort and angler catches based on interviews, information on aquatic plants, and recommendations for future fish management.
“The report summarizes one of the most comprehensive series of fish surveys ever done on a watershed basis,” said Jed Pearson, DFW biologist who conducted much of the field work and report writing.
The purpose of the surveys was to document which lakes provide good fishing and determine which lakes currently meet fishing standards set by local anglers, lake residents, and the DFW. The standards were established after a six-month public planning process spearheaded by the Tippecanoe Watershed Foundation.
“They wanted to know how the lakes stacked up against each other and what steps could be taken to improve fishing,” Pearson said.
Overall, largemouth bass were twice as abundant in the UTRLA lakes as in other lakes in northern Indiana. Crooked Lake contained an average number but bass were three times more abundant in Big Lake.
Bass sizes, however, were generally small. Those that were of legal size (14 inches and larger) made up an average of 11 percent of the populations, but those that were 18 inches and larger made up less than 2 percent. Big Lake had the lowest percentage of legal-size bass.
“We’re looking into options to reduce the number of small bass in Big Lake,” Pearson said.
Bluegill numbers and sizes fell within normal ranges, except at Goose and Loon. Goose Lake had an unusually high number of bluegills, including many large ones. In contrast, small bluegills dominated Loon Lake
“We need to encourage more bluegill fishing at the UTRLA lakes and find a way to increase bluegill size at Loon,” said Pearson.
Lake Freeman Largemouth and World Ranking Update
We've posted before about the stocking of largemouth bass that was carried out up in Freeman and Shafer lakes. You can search the archives for the story. For those that didn't see it, there was a good 2 page article on the actual follow-up surveys and tracking being done with those largemouth in the local paper. You can find the article at the jconline link below:
Hooking anglers bass study's goal
Also, since BassFan updated their World Rankings to reflect the most recent FLW results, I thought I'd go ahead and update our own Big Indiana Bass World Rankings just for some comparison. In our rankings, Reese, Vandam, Iaconelli and Ehrler still hold down the top 4 spots, but several changes have occurred below them. Bryan Thrift and Clark Wendlandt move much closer to Ehrler based on stronger finishes in this most recent tourney.
Andy Morgan and Dave LeFebre flip-flop their hold on 9th and 10th, and Ron Shuffield makes a big move up from 17th into 11th. Here are the Top-25 in the world as we at Big Indiana Bass now rank them with the updated anglers who fished bolded:
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