I talked to somebody from the DNR and heard that a lot of area ponds got hit pretty hard with winterkill this year. I saw a lot of dead trout and bluegills in the southeast corner of Bacon Creek, a small municipal lake here in Sioux City. However I didn’t get to walk around the whole thing so I don’t know exactly how bad it really is.
I finally got out during my lunch hour today and fly-fished a local public pond. 20mph winds didn’t help me much. I didn’t see any live fish…but did see 3 winterkill bluegills and a largish winterkill catfish.
Surprisingly enough, apart from the usual shad, I’ve not seen much evidence of much winterkill around here. My brother in Florida, now that’s a different story all together. The cold weather at Christmas decimated the snook population aroun Tampa.
Surprisingly enough, apart from the usual shad, I’ve not seen much evidence of much winterkill around here. My brother in Florida, now that’s a different story all together. The cold weather at Christmas decimated the snook population around Tampa.
Miami was wiped out as a whole both salt and fresh…just beginning to see freshwater fish now…flats are destroyed
Bonefishwhisperer wrote:
“Miami was wiped out as a whole both salt and fresh…just beginning to see freshwater fish now…flats are destroyed”
That’s way worse than we got it here. The only thing I’d like to see wiped out by a cold snap would be the pythons that are in the Everglades but I spose enough of them made it to start all over again.
I was at another local pond today and saw no evidence of winterkill there but this pond is a pretty deep spring fed one that has been around a long time and still produces good fishing.
I hit the peacock lotto finally…seems the deepest water has survivors…canals with lakes close by and the aquafir to keep ground water about 70 degrees…flats are still sterile…spending 10-12hrs a day out there and still nothing
We have a lake that had winterkill up here in NE AZ. It was posted somewhere a few weeks ago that someone went in on a snowmobile to ice fish. When he bored a hole dead trout started floating up through the hole. Bummer
Jim
dude…that dont sound good at all…I never even seen that in Alaska before
Agree…bummer. We have three lakes that do that.
http://www.azflyandtie.com/flyforum/showthread.php?t=7019
Actually more than three.
http://www.azflyandtie.com/flyforum/showthread.php?t=7157
Just FYI
Jim
I went fishing at Bacon Creek today with a buddy & we walked all the way around the lake. It looks like the trout were totally killed out in the lower part of the lake with bluegill also suffering a lot. We also saw 4 dead grass carp, one dead bass and one large dead catfish. Based on this I think most of the warmwater fish survived. Now if we would have found a lot of dead catfish I would really be worried since catfish can handle low oxygen levels pretty well. Interestingly enough I caught the only fish of the day which was a trout I caught in the headwaters of the lake. I think the fish survived up there since most of the time there is some fresh, well oxygenated water flowing into the lake.
Yessir…we have some lakes that freeze over solid, then get covered with deep snow. So the fish get no oxygen OR sun. Pretty tuff on the fish in those lakes.
Jim