fishing report for the last five days

[shorts]

Denny at Deer Run Resort got a 50 incher in June on a bucktail. They have a picture on their website. They also got quite a few upper 40's fish this year.

[Ty Sennett]

Overall my season was a little slower than normal. The largest was a 49 incher followed by a 48 1/2 inch and a 48 inch. I don't think I'll reach my normal goal of 100 fish from the Chip but I wasn't too far off. I'll tally my fish up tomorrow and see. I'm guessing upper 80's for numbers.

As for the lowering of the lake, I understand what they are doing but it's a total risk on the DNR's part. I like the idea of cleaning off the rock/gravel spawning areas for walleye recruitment but there could be a pretty good winterkill. This could make the milfoil go crazy in two years. Kind of like it was five or six years ago. Honestly, nobody knows what dropping the lake will do, myself included. After dumping all those walleye and muskie into the lake I'm not sure now is the time to experiment but it would be cheaper in the long run if the fish naturally reproduced.

[Ty Sennett]

Overall my season was a little slower than normal. The largest was a 49 incher followed by a 48 1/2 inch and a 48 inch. I don't think I'll reach my normal goal of 100 fish from the Chip but I wasn't too far off. I'll tally my fish up tomorrow and see. I'm guessing upper 80's for numbers.

As for the lowering of the lake, I understand what they are doing but it's a total risk on the DNR's part. I like the idea of cleaning off the rock/gravel spawning areas for walleye recruitment but there could be a pretty good winterkill. This could make the milfoil go crazy in two years. Kind of like it was five or six years ago. Honestly, nobody knows what dropping the lake will do, myself included. After dumping all those walleye and muskie into the lake I'm not sure now is the time to experiment but it would be cheaper in the long run if the fish naturally reproduced.

[Jax]

Overall my season was a little slower than normal. The largest was a 49 incher followed by a 48 1/2 inch and a 48 inch. I don't think I'll reach my normal goal of 100 fish from the Chip but I wasn't too far off. I'll tally my fish up tomorrow and see. I'm guessing upper 80's for numbers.

As for the lowering of the lake, I understand what they are doing but it's a total risk on the DNR's part. I like the idea of cleaning off the rock/gravel spawning areas for walleye recruitment but there could be a pretty good winterkill. This could make the milfoil go crazy in two years. Kind of like it was five or six years ago. Honestly, nobody knows what dropping the lake will do, myself included. After dumping all those walleye and muskie into the lake I'm not sure now is the time to experiment but it would be cheaper in the long run if the fish naturally reproduced.

Hi Ty,
I get what you are saying and i think alot of people are wondering how the lowering will affect things but i look at it as the water was dropped annually for 65+ years from 5-24 feet so I don't think the 8 feet will have too much negative impact at all if any. I think alot of positives will come out of it. One thing that i think it will improve (if they decide to continue to do it annually) is the erosion and shoreline health improvement. I remember being a kid and fishing the flowage and thinking the flowage was so cool with all the exposed stumps etc and seeing old pictures and seeing how clean shorelines were and the thousands of stumps and islands and grass patches but over the past 20 years or so alot of the stumps have been destroyed from the ice from higher water as well as islands and grass patches and shorelines being destroyed. I really feel that having the shorelines and spawning areas and lake bars exposed will really help the health of the lake as well as the management and conservation of the lake not only in the present but for the future.

A quick interesting note. i recently saw a picture of the bridge area by Herman's back when they did work on the bridge back in the 70's (I believe) and the water was down 18++ feet and all you saw was little puddles here and there. Pretty crazy!!! Also the water was dropped 20+ feet several times back in the 20's and 30's with an average of over 10+ feet during the first 65+ years.

I am defintely interested to see the effects this winter's drop has next year.

[Ty Sennett]

I'm with you on exposing the spawning areas. I think that's a really healthy thing to do also. I just wish there was a way around winterkill. The last big drawdown killed a lot of fish. Don't get me wrong, there will be winterkill every year no matter what but drawing the lake down is just a risk you have to take to have good clean spawning areas.

By the way, I lost my spreadsheet on the fish I caught so now it's taking a little longer. Maybe my wife can figure out this computer program. I think I lost all my fish from early in the year. I can find some of them on Treelands and Deerfoot's musky chart but not all of them. That's why I'm a guide and not a computer technician. I had more big fish than I thought though.

[Ty Sennett]

I'm with you on exposing the spawning areas. I think that's a really healthy thing to do also. I just wish there was a way around winterkill. The last big drawdown killed a lot of fish. Don't get me wrong, there will be winterkill every year no matter what but drawing the lake down is just a risk you have to take to have good clean spawning areas.

By the way, I lost my spreadsheet on the fish I caught so now it's taking a little longer. Maybe my wife can figure out this computer program. I think I lost all my fish from early in the year. I can find some of them on Treelands and Deerfoot's musky chart but not all of them. That's why I'm a guide and not a computer technician. I had more big fish than I thought though.

[shorts]

There was also a 51 incher caught out of Deer Run Resort.