[Anonymouse]

Originally Posted by ltrain

Anonymouse,
How is Kegonsa doing these days? Was a big part of my life in my early years 36-46 years ago. Used to be a fantastic lake back then for panfish and the occasional walleye .I post a 40 + year throwback pic of my dad with a typical days catch. Note: there were several of us so we were within limits back then.

In the 1980s Kegonsa was producing MONSTER crappies, 17"-19" - & nice eater walleyes between 2#-4#.
These days reports we hear say you can cut those size/weight estimates in half, with 10" crappies still taken and a few 2# walleyes but mostly they are a lot of smaller fish there these days with occasional year class blooms of perch, white bass, and crappies providing good numbers, if not sizable fish.
Anonymouse gave up hard water fishing & can't get the 22' cuddy through the Waubesa locks, so he hasn't gone fishing in Kegonsa since around 2000.

There's something about Kengonsa that is driving the fish that do grow larger either upstream into Waubesa (if they can sneak through the locks with smaller boats in spring & fall) and eventually to Monona or even Mendota if they can breach the locks there as well - or down the Yahara to the Rock River.
Likely it's lowered O2 levels due to phosphates and pesticides getting concentrated down there & horrific blue-green algae blooms creating dead zones in all 4 lakes when it dies off and sucks the O2 right out of the system.
The Madison chain wasn't all that clear when Anonymouse moved here in '73 and while the zebras have done some filtration it's not nearly enough to combat fertilizer runoff so green soup starts early here.
Monona was already green in early May and it was a cold spring.