From the DNR Fishing Report

[Mark Benson]

The below excerpt is from the Natural Resources Magazine and is intended to bring out the highlights of the TFF rather than dwell on the negatives that are brought up by the spring tribal activities:

IRON COUNTY
Turtle-Flambeau Flowage — This 14,300-acre flowage is one of the most enjoyable places to fish in northern Wisconsin. With 334 miles of mostly undeveloped shoreline, 377 islands, and exposed bedrock everywhere, anglers could easily mistake this place for Canada. And the fishery, while
comparable to Canadian lakes, is certainly more diverse. Because of its remote location, summer fishing pressure on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage is four times less than on the average Wisconsin lake. The combination of scenery, solitude, and good fishing is hard to beat. In 2011, fishing should be
especially interesting around many of the large trees that blew into the water off island shorelines during last summer’s tornado.

The walleye population has held steady at a desirable level of about four adults per acre for more than a decade without any stocking.
There is no length limit on walleye here, but more than a third of all walleye in the lake are 15 inches or longer. Anglers can expect the best fishing here in May, but walleye can be caught year-round, including mid-winter
through the ice.

As spring turns to summer, smallmouth bass become a favorite angler target. Good compliance with the 15-inch minimum length limit and high, voluntary release of legalsize fish has created one of the best smallmouth bass fisheries in the Midwest. Smallies harvested by anglers in 2009 averaged
16.5 inches, and they all look like footballs, thanks to feeding on an abundant crayfish food supply. Smallmouth bass are compatible with walleye, so anglers are encouraged to voluntarily release legal-sized smallies in
order to sustain what has become a worldclass bass fishery.

Largemouth bass occur in very low numbers in the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage. Unlike smallmouth bass, largemouth bass can and do eat young walleye and compete with them for food. Therefore, anglers are encouraged to harvest and enjoy eating the few legal-sized largemouth bass they may
encounter in order to ensure that walleye remain dominant.

Musky are few but big, and getting bigger, in the Turtle-Flambeau Flowage. Under a 40-inch minimum length limit, the proportion of musky 40 inches and longer has almost doubled over the past decade. More than a third of all musky encountered by anglers in 2011 are likely to be over 40 inches and as
many as 10 percent may exceed 45 inches. The musky here are robust, probably because they have so many small northern pike to eat. The skinny, hungry, over-abundant pike probably eat most young musky, forcing DNR to stock large muskie fingerlings in order to maintain the fishery. Anglers can help the pike and the musky populations by keeping their limits of five pike daily (no length limit) and releasing legal-size musky.

Because the Flowage has consistently held such a good walleye population, heavy predation by walleye on young panfish has thinned out bluegill, yellow perch, and black crappie sufficiently to promote fast growth to preferred sizes. Based on results of our 2009 surveys, anglers may have to hunt
awhile to find concentrations of panfish, but eight-inch bluegill, nine- to 10-inch perch, 11-inch crappie, and even some big rock bass will be their reward. Winter fishing is particularly popular for black crappie here, which are sustained by a protective 10-inch minimum length limit. The daily bag limit
for all panfish combined is 10, which should help maintain quality size structure for all panfish species. - Dave Neuswanger, fisheries
supervisor, Upper Chippewa Basin

Here is a link to the entire Fishing Report for the state:

http://dnr.wi.gov/fish/reports/fishi...rt2011_web.pdf

Mark

[mkoeh475]

Thanks for the story and the link! How much impact do you all think the newly downed trees will have?

Matt

[perchoreno]

I have a difficult time believing Dave N really wrote this report. The, ah, prose goes a little far afield from the facts I think.

Did he really write this???

[ski2313]

Sums the flowage up perfectly!

[BlueRanger]

Fallen trees are great habitat - our former fisheries biologist told me a couple years ago that he and the TFF Property Manager had contemplated the idea of doing strategic tree drops along the shorelines as a complement to the crib project. But they needed a way to knock them over with the roots intact so they would stay in place and look natural. That lead them to the idea that perhaps this could be accomplished with the use of explosives... He said they never got around to actually testing the idea, but to me it definitely sounded like part of the appeal was just a couple big boys looking for a convenient excuse to go out and blow things up.

The wind direction of the tornado put a lot of trees in the water in areas with steep dropoffs and very little existing shoreline cover - in Baraboo, for example. It should be very interesting to see the effects over the next few years.