Several friends brought to my attention that there were threads on fishing web sites with theories speculating about why Alum Creek Lake muskie fishing and muskie numbers seemed to be off the scale this spring at "Alum". The short answer is all our State Muskie Program Lakes are now consistently receiving the healthiest (best condition) advanced fingerling muskies in the history of muskie management in Ohio. All our Program Lakes have the same stocking rate of 1 fish/acre, some lakes like Alum have as much as three times the acreage of water compared to a Clearfork or Leesville so it receives three times as many fish. Some lakes like Leesville rarely lose muskies due to high water events in spring and with the better average water quality (clearer in spring) turn in big numbers of fish every year. Alum has not been as fortunate in that regard over the years and has experienced several significant loses of fish during the crucial late March to early May spawning period when muskies are very mobile and looking for good clean water to deposit their eggs. What we are experiencing this spring is what Alum can achieve with over 4 years now of no big releases in April along with stable water level and water clear enough for active muskies to see angler's lures.

A few other facts concerning Alum this spring are the following:

Unlike you might think, the shad population (muskie forage) is high at present, shad populations exploded in many of our States Lakes last season with several heavy spawns instead of one. These fish can range from 3-5 inches depending on which end of the spawn they came from.

The muskies being caught in the highest numbers range from 2+ years old to 5+ years old or 22" to 40" with the two 48-inch fish being 7 to 9 years old most likely. There has not been a double stocking at Alum Creek Lake. It did receive an extra 10% last year due to VHS prescience at Clearfork Reservoir. Part of the Department of Agriculture agreement for when we cleared quarantine at London Fish Hatchery was that any fingerlings raised at the Hatchery would all go to Alum because the surplus fry from London hatchery raised from Clearfork eggs had already been stocked there. Please note: there was no mortality at Clearfork related to the prescience of VHS and our hatchery egg treatment protocols were already in place. No virus was found at the London Hatchery after 6 months of testing and the remaining muskies were all stocked at Alum. Our Kincaid Hatchery stocked the remaining State Program Lakes.

We may need to devote one of our monthly Programs to the local saugeye fishery to bring some local anglers up to date. This post is my way of addressing some of this as we all know you can't win by responding to outlandish statements and downright character assassination on the internet although I thought that wasn't supposed to be allowed on these sites. The people I work with are the most professional and intelligent fisheries biologist in the country and with the help of institutions like The Ohio State University, Miami University and others, have researched our percid stockings (walleye,saugeye,yellow perch and now triploid saugeye) program for over twenty years. Alum Creek Lake is one of our "intensive" study lakes and has always received one of the highest priorities for saugeye stockings and population monitoring. It goes to show you how dynamic and complex these flood control reservoirs can be. With all that effort, stocking and research plus all variables explored, we still can't guarantee a stocking success. Absolutely no one would enjoy wall to wall saugeyes at Alum more than I. The only thing I like better than catching a limit of saugeyes is catching an incidental muskie while doing it and vice versa.

Elmer