Originally Posted by
INTIMIDATOR
Those of us from what is left of the CJ thread on OGF, can speak to what can happen to a lake that gets too much publicity.
For those new to crappie.com, we were granted permission to put cover into CJ for 13 years. The original plan was to provide protection for the dwindling perch population, which was the Main Walleye forage at that time. The cover benefited the entire fishery even growing the shad base to where it is today. We had up to 50 fishermen for each drop, up to 2 drops a yr, helping with the projects....we dropped several thousand pieces of cover....and the fishery exploded.
About the 8th yr the State had the STUPID idea to publish the GPS coordinates of the cover we dropped that year....the whole cover program was to grow the lake so it was healthy, and so it didn't suffer the "bulldozed barren bowl" reservoirs, cycle of good and bad years....it was not meant for fishermen to poach off of.
So the State published the coordinates....soon, we had license plates in the Main Boat Ramp, from Surrounding States....lots full all the time...fishing boats everywhere...and this was just a 2500 acre lake.
Boats sat on the cover 24/7....We had fights over the cover....we had fistfights...we had people pulling guns...we had people running off handicapped and children in special areas set up for them....we had people lining up all around the Marina day and night....trash everywhere!
Soon, the cover was all pulled up (from people getting hung up, etc.)...fished completely out....pulled out on purpose, so others couldn't fish it...it was a nightmare.
We never put cover back in those areas, and never gave out coordinates again.
The reason we legally stopped 3 years ago was because the State tried to make us publish coordinates again....so we just quit the legal projects.
Greedy fishermen can ruin a lake quickly.