Chippewa Flowage disaster

[Zeke]

Here's a heads up from the Chippewa Flowage. Shocking reports and I mean shocking, have revealed basically no juvenile class walleyes. The suspected culprit, largemouth bass. It doesn't seem possible that it could happen but the shocking boats confirm it. Coupling this with a current policy of minimal drawdowns over the past 15 plus years have allowed the panfish population to explode. All in all a very disturbing situation. Smallies are not implicated as they favor different habitat and feed. In Sawyer county we have seen another terrific walleye lake fall to largemouth, that being Nelson Lake. I'm not a biologist and don't play one on TV, but this is the word from my backyard.

[BlueRanger]

Wisconsin Natural Resources Magazine has a good article on Largemouth - Walleye interactions in the June issue. You can read it online here:

http://dnr.wi.gov/wnrmag/2010/06/fishery.htm

[Mark Benson]

Blue:

Thanks for putting that up as after I finished reading the article in the man's home library, I wanted to get that in front of as many people as I could. It really defines the problems with our walleyes. So people are always ready to blame one thing, when in fact there are generally many factors at play resulting in these problems.

I have not looked at the entire panoramic thing yet, but it is very interesting and I look forward to finishing it.

Mark Miko..., I did get your message regarding opening day fishing, thought I tried to call back, but may have spaced it also...

Mark

[Flambeau dreamer]

Only caught one largemouth in the flowage over the last 25 years. 13 incher.
I think the tff is safe.
Good luck to the chipp.
chris

[George]

Used to fish Nelson Lake near Hayward several times a year. Was a great walleye fishery. However, about 15 years ago personally noticed less and less smaller walleyes and an increasing trend of very nice sized largemouths. Have been reading about this on the Hayward sites for several years now. Hopefully the TFF won't suffer the same fate.

[ski2313]

I've read that walleyes and largemouths do not coexist very well. And relative to the largemouth, smallies and walleyes get along just fine.

[MuskieRandy]

Zeke:
Do you have a link to an article on the Web about this? Did you get this directly from the DNR? I tried Googling for this topic, and all I could find was this from last fall that says the preliminary results were not good:

http://www.cfapoa.org/pdf/newsletter_fall_2009.pdf

[George G]

Seems like a group of Holly Rollers from a church group felt it was necessary to put aside the fishing regulations and hoard as many fish from the Chippie as possible. Great sportsmen hey, wondering what their heritage is ?? DNR took 6 hours to count all the fish , must be a whole bunch more somewhere else. Article at JSonline this morning about a bunch of former fishing enthusiats over harvesting. Do you think they will have to pay the 71K fine that is a potential. ?? How many more people like this exist. A few people get concerned about keeping your daily limit of 3 walleye's and here is a bunch of individuals taking thousands. Interesting. ( Latest clicky word for something much more rude) Have a nice day.