Big Indiana Bass

Just received the most recent report on the Eel River initiative. The tagging program is still going through the first half of this year up there. Catch a tagged smallmouth and get BPS reward cards. Below is the Executive Summary from the report, but the full report is attached for download.

SUMMARY

A black bass survey was conducted on 46.4 miles (74.5 km) of the Eel River of north central Indiana from 24 June 2013 to 16 August 2013.

• Seven stations were sampled ranging in stream reach length from 3.6 miles (5.8 km) to 10.9 miles (17.5 km) with 21.5 hours of electrofishing.
• A total of 525 smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu) (SMB) were captured and processed with a range in length of 3.2 to 13.3 inches (81-338 mm). Mean total CPUE fish/mile over all seven sample stations was 11.5 ±SE 2.
• All fish collected were age 1 to age 3 as aged by dorsal spines. Growth at each age class exceeded the Indiana and Eastern Cornbelt Plain average growth for SMB over the same age classes.
• Relative weights of all age classes represented in the Eel River survey was considered high at 101 for stock fish and 100 for quality fish.
• The PSD across all seven sample stations ranged from 4 to 36 with an overall PSD of 8.
• Of 110 fish aged by dorsal spines, 78 (71%) were 1+ with mean TL of 7.87 inches ±SE 0.17, 29 fish (26%) were 2+ with a mean TL of 10.76 inches ±SE 0.2 , and 3 fish (3%) were 3+ and mean TL of 12.53 inches ±SE 0.09.
• The mean QHEI across all 7 sample stations was 74 ±SE 0.86 (Good to Excellent Category).
• The year class strength of SMB is dependent on water quality spawning conditions in May and June. In 2012 during a drought year (June mean CFS 78), 27 SMB nests were documented while in 2013 (June CFS mean 1,440), no nests were documented.
• Over the seven sample stations, 200 rock bass (Ambloplites rupestris) were captured and processed. Rock bass ranged in size from 1.9 to 7.9 inches (48-201 mm). The CPUE per mile was 4.4.
• Six greater redhorse sucker (Moxostoma valenciennesi) were captured during the survey ranging in length 19.5 inches (495 mm) to 25 inches (635 mm).

Full report: download

• Download IDNR black bass final report 2014