hello all. i am new to this forum, been reading as much as i can over the last ~3 months. my family owns a cottage in northern - LP - Michigan. amazing place been going there since i was a kid.
back in the 90's my uncle dug out the swamp and turned it into a 6-7 acre lake, they stocked it with yellow perch and i am pretty sure lake trout, cant remember. i live in south Florida and manage to get up there around 4 or 5 times a year. i have never seen a trout up there so im guessing they are gone. i was up there back in early february, got to do some ice fishing. caught 20+ of stunted YP and 2 of the guys i posted. I cant figure out what these guys are, I was thinking they look like creek chubs but theres no creek for them to spawn, maybe some type of carp? any help from you guys would be great.
as most of you, i would like to "manage" this lake as a hobby. im in the middle of planning a trip for the end of april to fly up. i have never seen a YP larger than about 3 inches (except about 8 years ago my cousin caught about an 8 inch one) seeing that i live over 1000 miles away and dont get up there to much i would like the lake to be "naturally managed"
after reading many posts on here i have come up with a small plan to let the yellow perch thrive. so far: my two buddies and i will spend a day or two catching and killing as many perch (and the unidentified fish if we need too). why? because once we finish that i would like to dipnet as many minnows as i can from the creek (creek is about 1000 ft from the lake) and transfer them to the lake hoping they will spawn and set up a minnow population(a long with this, we have 3 small ponds that i will throw them in). i also plan to use the loader to go around the property (800+ acres forest) and chose trees that have fallen, bring them to the lake which bring me to this question, on one part of the lake there are two trees about 40 ft tall along the edge that ive seen hawks and once a bald eagle sit in and catch fish from, would me setting 2 or 3 trees underwater near the tall tree help the predator birds catch fish? of course they wont get all the perch and manage it perfectly but hey if they could catch 5 a week at the end of the year that's 250 fish that other wise would be taking up the forage.
i have included a picture from google earth of the lake along with the three ponds to the northeast. wish i had some on ground photos but last february was the first time in 6 years.
