June 5th report

[Ty Sennett]

We had a tough day again yesterday. Bruce had a low thirty inch fish hooked for a while but it got into the weeds and got off. Darrin had one follow right after that but wouldn't commit. Same size or smaller. I had one the same size follow right after that. All of that was in about a half hour in the morning. We didn't see any in the afternoon. We did see a lot of crappie and bluegill floating dead. There must be something weird going on with them. We called the DNR and Herold Treeland took some in to the DNR for testing. We didn't see any other species than crappie and bluegill floating. maybe it's nothing.

Good luck,


Ty

[releaseher]

oh boy

dont like the sounds of that...please let us know what the DNR comes up with, did the fish look ok. i mean i know they were dead but were they all puffed up, red around the eyes, any signs it might be what we really dont want it to be?

[Ty Sennett]

I'm sure it's not VHS. The only thing that we saw dead were crappie and bluegill. It might have been because of the water temp dropping about ten degrees in two days. The fish probably didn't want to leave the shallows and the water change must have been too much of a shock to their system. Or there was some kind of virus that was enhanced by the water temp change. We didn't see any really big crappie or bluegill. Most were 7 to 8 inches or smaller. There are still a lot floating around out there. There is no shortage of crappie in the Chip anyway. Lots and lots of them to go around.

[Picatee]

Ty,

I have been following your forum for some time. I ussually do not comment but could not refuse. I was in the Twin cities fishing Minnetonka and Bald Eagle this past weekend. Tough sliding with the weather. A few northern and 5-6 slow follows but no takers.

Anyway, we seen the same phenomenon on both lakes. Dead Crappies and Bluegill. All were smaller fish...

[Fiedler]

I was on the madison chain friday and we had the same here with the dead crappies and bluegills, most of the gills were 6-8" and the crappies were 10-11" it would be nice to know whats going on.

[Ty Sennett]

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. Probably something natural that happens every year around spawning time. It was probably just enhanced with the water temps crashing so bad.