Winter kill under way

[steve(IL)]

We live on a small lake. The recent thaw has caused a little run off to melt a small patch of ice at the inlet. Seems like every fish in the lake is crowded in there shoulder to shoulder. We've had winter kills in the past when we've had lots of snow on the ice like this year.

According to the bait shops, many local lakes have shut down recently in terms of fishing. If your fish seem to have turned off - consider moving to a bigger, deeper and better oxygenated lake. The fish in our lake are gasping for air (horrible, but true). Feeding is way down on their list of priorities. Plus, if they do need to feed, all they have to do is open their mouths and suck in tons of young of the year bluegills and minnows. Another thought might be to concentrate on inlets as sources of more oxygenated water.

I wonder if a compressor and bubbler would do any good. Does anyone have experience with these? Thanks.

[CJW]

I'd call the Minnesota DNR about oxygenating a lake being that they do it . They should be able to answer your questions. Craig

[Nofish]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-16-01 AT 07:20AM (CST)[p]Hey Steve,

Just call the IDNR. They will know what you can and cant do legally, obviously. ;-)

However, they will (or should) also know of any Pond management firms out there. We have a company that takes care of two small ponds at one of our properties, but they are a small time operation.

I do know that there are a few places around that do help people keep small lakes and ponds from winter killing. There was just such an outfit at the Milwaukee Sports show, downtown, last year. However their name escapes me at the moment.

Maybe even scan the phone book? Or surf the web??

The Wis DNR is having a winter kill problem on one of the lakes here. It is a fairly large but very shallow lake. They are removing snow and drilling holes to allow sunlight in to promote new weed growth. Green weeds = oxygen. Maybe you can remove snow from the ice? Pop 100 or so holes with a power auger?

Good luck......R

[mossboss]

I live in SW MINN and most of the lakes in our area run less than 10ft and in the dry years less than 6 or 7. Many of the lakes have aeration systems in them. The problem is when water is so low, and the ice so thick, the open water area is so small that the wind does'nt get a chance to carry oxygenated water to the rest of the lake. Even with these systems in place we are having winter kill on lakes. If you have a oxygen tester and it shows less than 2 parts per million, it is probably to late. If you are going to aerate a lake, check with the DNR. There are some legal issues to address. Just a note. These systems in our area are funded and operated by a conservation group. If it were up to the DNR, they would let these lakes die.

[steve(IL)]

Just an adder - we had a winterkill about seven years ago. I collected six (6) bushel baskets of dead fish from our 400' of shoreline. I could not dig a hole deep enough to contain that stink :-0. I'm not so shook about the winterkill itself, it's just that there are some real Lunker bass that I hope make it through.