For the second year in a row, Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) fisheries biologists will tag and release 1,500 one-year-old muskie into Lake Webster to boost the lake’s sagging muskie population. The stocking will happen this month.

 

The fish normally would have been stocked last fall, but were held over the winter in a pond and fed live minnows at the Fawn River State Hatchery, in the hope of increasing their chance for survival.

Studies in other states show yearold muskie stocked in spring survive at higher rates than fingerling muskie stocked in fall, presumably because they can avoid predators more easily and have more food and cover in fall.

Muskie stocked this month will average 12.5 inches long, about 2 inches larger than a batch of 1,325 fingerlings stocked in the 774-acre Kosciusko County lake last fall. Before stocking, each fish will be tagged with a transponder enabling biologists to track its long-term growth and compare its survival with muskie stocked in the fall.

The tags were purchased and donated by Hoosier Muskie Hunters, an organization of muskie anglers based in Indianapolis. Muskie have been stocked into Lake Webster for more than 35 years. The population peaked in 2005 and then declined. The cause of the decline is unknown.

Lake Webster is one of 13 Indiana waters stocked with a combined 20,000 muskie each year by the DNR. Six are natural lakes in northern Indiana (Barbee, Bruce, Everett, Skinner, Tippecanoe and Webster). Five are pits in southern Indiana (Bass, Bluegrass, Duck, Loon and Plover).

Two reservoirs, Eagle Creek in Indianapolis and Brookville Lake in southeastern Indiana, are also stocked. Two other lakes in Noble County (Loon and Upper Long) are stocked with muskie by local anglers with a permit from the DNR.

Biologists say if the larger, older muskie survive better at Lake Webster, similar stockings could be done in other Indiana waters.

Evaluating muskie program in Greene-Sullivan State Forest Anglers at Bass and Duck lakes in Greene-Sullivan State Forest may encounter a DNR employee asking questions about their fishing experience and what they caught. Fisheries biologists are conducting a creel survey to help evaluate the 20-year muskie stocking program in the lakes, which are in the forest’s Dugger Unit.

The survey began the first week of April and will run through October. Creel survey interviews are being done to identify what species anglers are targeting, how many fish they are catching, what anglers think about the muskie program, how many fishing trips were completed in 2017 and more. The creel clerk will also measure the anglers’ harvest.

A fish-community survey using electro-fishing, gill nets and trap nets will take place in June. The overview of the fish community will give a snapshot of the fishery. Previous sampling in 2016 accounted for 29 muskie ranging in length from 33-45.5 inches at Bass Lake. At Duck Lake, two muskie were collected, at 32.6 and 36 inches.

Bass Lake has been stocked annually with muskie since 1997, and Duck Lake stocking began in 2008.

Muskie live a long time and can reach 50 inches long, which is why stocking rates are low, averaging five fish per acre annually.

The arrival of spring means prime time to visit Indiana’s nature preserves. But this season is special; 50 years ago, in 1967, the Indiana legislature passed the Nature Preserves Act, which made the protection of such properties possible.

“The Act created a structure for protecting the most widely and evenly distributed system of state-significant public properties in Indiana,” said John Bacone, director of the DNR Division of Nature Preserves, which was created by the Act to manage the program.

Starting with the dedication of Pine Hills Nature Preserve in Montgomery County in 1969, there are now dedicated nature preserves in 70 of Indiana’s 92 counties. The 277 preserves protect a combined 52,182 acres.

The protected land includes at least one example of almost every type of the 61 natural communities found in Indiana at the time of its settlement. Some of these natural community types include oldgrowth forests (Shrader-Weaver Nature Preserve), geologic features (Portland Arch NP), sand savannas (Hoosier Prairie NP), dunes (Dunes Nature Preserve), prairies (Smith Cemetery NP) and lakes (Olin Lake NP).

The system also protects large landscapes such as the glacial morainal complex at Moraine NP, kettle lakes (at Spicer Lake NP), karst features (at Mitchell Sinkhole Plain) and many others.

“There are many types of state protection for land in Indiana, but a dedicated nature preserve has the highest level,” Bacone said. “It is intended to remain in its natural ecological condition in perpetuity.” Such nature preserves are owned by 45 different entities, including the DNR divisions of Nature Preserves, Forestry, State Parks and Fish & Wildlife, as well as land trusts, city and county park departments and colleges and universities.

“During 2017 and in the years to come, I hope you will visit as many of these special places as possible and enjoy these remnants of the ‘original Indiana,” Bacone said.

For more information, including a map of all of Indiana’s nature preserves, see www.naturepreserves.dnr.IN.gov

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments may contact Jack Spaulding by email at jackspaulding@hughes.net or by writing to him in care of this publication.