8/15

[Jerry Tipping]

I met Andy from Brookfield, Wi and his son Dave at Well's Lakeside Cottages at 6 this morning. Jigged for the first 3 1/2 hour and caught 5 "shorties" and 1 keeper, and 1 crappie. Trolled for a while with only 1 "shortie" and 1 whitebass. It's a tough bite right now. When they picked up the jig you only felt the weight, not a hard tap. We also missed a few. A lot of green out there today. No wind and it is getting pretty thick.

Photos in the album.

Jerry

[Jeff Snug Harbor]

Jerry

Some time ago you said that you saw the DNR out with tunnel nets

Were you able to get any onfo from them about the results bof the netting

I have a place on Duck Creek - no fish from my dock and I no longer see any of the bass guys fishing oe anyone else fishing the creek anymore.

Used to catch all sorts of fish, last year and this year Nothing - no pearch no Blue Gills a stray Cat Fish and stripper once and while

Jeff Gross / Snug harbor

[Jerry Tipping]

I have not checked on the fyke net results, but go to the link below and you may find out, or e-mail them and I am sure they will get you some info.

http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/

[HomeAway]

Jeff,
Let us know what the DNR says. We no longer see any fish by us either (we are just up the creek from you). Maybe the carp have chased them all away, or something else is "poisoning" the creek from the surrounding area?
Paul

[Jeff Snug Harbor]

This is what I sent to Justine the DNR Rep for our area

'justine.hasz@wisconsin.gov'


Subject: Castle Rock Lake

Justine

You name was given to me by the folks on the DNR web site.

Early this year the DNR was seen trailing Fyke Nett’s on the river below the petenwell dam .

I have a place on Duck Creek ( Adams County Castle Rock lake) for over 16 years.

In the past we were able to catch Walleye, Bass, Blue Gill, Perch and an occasional Pike.

I actually have caught a 40” pike and some large walleye off my dock all returned .

The past two years the fishing has gone to nothing, not even small Blue Gill or Perch, on Duck Creek and seems to have deteriorated on the lake as well.

The riprap near the castle Rock dam was always a good place to catch & release Small Mouth. I haven’t seen one worth catching this year.

The bass fishermen stopped fishing on the creek which is an indication to me “why bother no fish”

I am wondering if there is a water quality problem in Duck & Cline Creek and what were the results of the Fyke netting

Jeff & Barb Gross
Snug Harbor
Castle Rock Lake

[Jeff Snug Harbor]

This is the answer I got from Justine


The nets that we set this spring were actually set in the lower end of Petenwell and not in Castle Rock. If other nets were seen in the upper end of Castle Rock I do not know who they belonged too. We are scheduled to do a full lake survey on Castle Rock in the spring of 2013. We did have nets in the river section of Castle Rock the last week of July and we were targeting the catfish.

I was not out on the catfish survey at the end of July as I was attending another meeting. I do not have the results at hand but understand that in three nights of fishing they captured about 400 catfish. I will get a copy of the raw data this week and can send you a little more information on what was caught later this week or early next week.

The panfish numbers can be highly cyclic especially the yellow perch the past few springs have not been good weather for the success of spawning yellow perch. We did see lower numbers of bluegill and black crappie in the surveys the past two springs on Petenwell, however this could be due again to the weather that we had the past couple of years. We do not have a specific survey that targets the bass in these waters as they are very difficult to sample effectively with the types of gear we have available to us. Therefore it is hard for me to know if the numbers are truly down or if habitat changes are causing the bass to move to different areas of the lake. The high number of catfish that are now present in both the Petenwell and Castle Rock systems could be playing a part in the number and location of both the panfish and the bass. There appeared to be a good population of freshwater drum (sheephead) forming in the Petenwell and therefore I am sure the same is occurring in Castle Rock. The increase in the numbers (abundance) of these newer introduced species is likely having some form of a negative impact on the more desirable species and those that are native to the system. The amount of negative impact that these newer species is having on the natives is unknown and not quantified.

The one thing we did see this spring on Petenwell was a better number of northern pike, the changes made to the drawdown timing and allowing the pike to get to there spawning grounds at the right time will really help them out.

The flooding in the Fall of 2010 and the Spring of 2011 have made some significant changes to the distribution of the habitat available to the different fish species. A lot of sediment and sand was moved during the floods that could have covered some critical spawning areas for fish. Also a lot of large woody structure was also moved with the powerful surges of water we had again relocating the habitat for fish.

In talking with Scott Provost as to the water quality of Klein and Duck Creek, he informed me that both of thee creeks have good water quality and the larger issue in this area of the lake is the push of not so good quality lake water with a west wind that can mix in with the water from the two creeks and push inland up the creeks above the crossing with HWY Z.

I hope the above has answered some of your concerns and questions.

I will get back to you shortly with the catfish survey results.

Justine

________________________________________

[HomeAway]

Did Justine ever follow up with the actual data on the catfish survey?