The locals say the bluegill fishing has dried up almost completely. Even hard to catch bass bigger than 14". I see from the PDF that they did plant catfish (that was a rumor I had heard before) but the report suggests no natural reproduction in their sampling.
There was data through 2014. One thing about Bluegills that I noticed was that number of BG smaller than 6" began increasing around 2000. Meanwhile the Pumpkinseed fell off the cliff. The increase of BG of that size might have in part been related to the space left by Pumpkin seeds. Notably lacking is any estimate of production (harvest counts and weights).
You have me wondering what happened to the BG between 2014 and 2019 when you were last there. Are they largely gone and if so why? Was the lake a victim of humans overharvesting, winterkill, or perhaps even the flathead. Next time you go, you should try to do some fishing for BG. If its anywhere as good as it was in 2014, then you would be in for a treat. Locals do have an incentive to underplay their good fortune if indeed they enjoy it. Where I am from, nobody tells the truth about where they catch their fish. The most popular reply is "Pinney Hill" and when you hear that you know they aren't saying! Or sometimes they say ... Right Here ... forming their index finger into a hook shape while indicating the fish were caught in the lip.
One thing I can say is that there is a huge difference between a trophy fishery (producing > 10" BG) and a good fishery (many 6" to 8" and few >8")when one talks about how fast the fishing is. Some prefer a lot of 6-8" fish and not a few 8-11" fish and this may be what they meant by "dried up". Sand Lake seemed to have evolved into a trophy lake with time ... at least until 2014.
Rarely someone catches a NP so they must not naturally reproduce so well either.
They mentioned poor growth of NP in all the study lakes. Flathead presence did not help them.
The graphs show very few pumpkinseed even. I'm wondering if the lake had gone through possibly some bad winterkills since it is so shallow.
The pumpkinseed were plentiful but too small to eat prior to the flathead introduction. The flathead were proceeding to extirpate them from Sand Lake. This tells me that BG are more robust and fecund. What we don't know is how the pumpkinseeds might have fared without competition from BG. It appears also that BH were greatly reduced in number by flathead presence.
But the evidence even in this tiny lake with a challenging environment for predator and prey shows that the hungry flatheads were cleaning up on small fish in the desired size range (less than 6" )
Yes and I wouldn't have expected that.
