Wow, how exciting to get such good ideas. We had the lake electofished and a fish survey done. It came out something like 45% gizzard shad, 40% Bluegill, 5% LM Bass,some carp, but not a problem, but they felt there were not a enough 1, 2 & 3 year old Bass. They removed 7 carp, 35 lbs of g. shad. There were some very big LM, the bluegill are pretty small (but they said not quite a stunted population) and the average size of the g.shad was 9.5" long. They are skinny compared to the ones in the photos, and we have 1-2 cormorants eating them in most of the summer.
The lake has been mismanaged, with outflow left open by the city, with county draining ditch backflowing into the lake (maybe the shad came in there, it is closed for a year now). The lake has way too many storm drains and run-off, water testing of water coming in through the drains before, initial wash, 10 minutes into , and next day reveals off the charts nitrates and phosphates. We are banning phos., and working with the city to try and divert some of the drains, salt is not used in the sub, but some is coming in from 1 drain out of the sub. Bad treatment company had a kid here for 3 seasons that just bombed the hell out of us with copper sulfate, and killed all living vegetation in the lake, trying to control the plantonic algae that arrives the 2nd week in June for 5 years now, lake was being treated a month too late for the curly leaf pondweed which was allowed to become the dominant plant. They killed off all the Chara. We got them out of here and a new great company in here. The white scum is gone, but we still have the plank. algae, they can control it, but nothing works more than 6-8 days, we want to try a bacteria bioremediation program but have to fight hard for that like everything else. I can watch the water go from decent, to planktonic algae on a windy day in June. So once the water hits 72, we get green bubbles on the surface in the morning that move very slowing into shore on days with no wind. The thought is that the g.shad are contributing to the nutrient load by 1> the mass of them, 2> how they stir up the bottom, 3>how the eat so much zooplankton. The 2002 sediment survey revealed 1-4" with average about 2" buildup on the bottom. It is a former gravel pit, sandy, spring fed lake developed in the late 70"s, and is 8" deep. It is mostly been a beautiful swimming lake, paddleboats, sailboats, no motors,no serious fishermen. There is no flushing rate. This past year the lake started off murky right from the start for the first time, and clarity was about 21" most of the season, no native seed bank, nothing grew back in. We have to get some good pondweeds going this spring (Sago, American, Illinois and the Chara back), nothing is holding the sediment down or taking up nutrients.
I think the problem with the pike is that we go from g.shad heavy to pike heavy - so if the Tiger Muskie don't reproduce, that sounds good to me. And if they are easy to remove later, that would be good too, one bit a child here in Tipsico lake (I think) a few years back. The fish guys were surprised that with the hard winter we had last year the g.shad didn't die off. We have had some LMBass spawing boxes made, and have to figure out some good cover to attach (we are told that will funtion for the minnows too, which we aren't seeing much of now either).
The low dose fish kill sounds good to me, but nobody else thinks that is a good idea.
Thank you all you good people trying to help me solve this problem. I love my lake, so sad to see this happen to it.
Lynda
