Thread: motor restriction?

it's to keep fishing pressure down on those small lakes.

Just get you a nice little jon with a 9.9 and go with the flow. It's worth it. Besides...if you're other boat has a breakdown you have something to fish with until you get it fixed. I end up fishing just as much out of my jon's as my bassboat. I even take them to the bigger lakes sometimes when I could take the bass boat.

Washington county lake experimented with this. Not sure why it falied.
Would lakes like coffeen, Newton, Sangchris benefit from it?

Heard rumors that the state is looking into changing the admin rules on this topic. But you know how rumors are.

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Originally Posted by mudman

Can anyone tell me why there are motor size restrictions (under 10 hp) on small lakes rather than to have a no wake lake or a speed limit. It would be nice to be able to use a larger motor at a slower speed, there are several lakes I would like to fish but don't want to add a kicker motor. Currently I use my trolling motor, but I am limited by my batteries as to my fishing time.

It's been probably at least 8-10 years or sometime ago that the state put in effect a trial period of time, that a few lakes in Illinois would allow you to launch and drive at IDLE speed on the lake with your gasoline motor no matter the horsepower. Emphasis on IDLE SPEED. They was going to monitor the lakes to see if boaters could abide. Dawson lake aka Moraine View up north of Leroy was one of the lakes that took part in the program. Been there done that and it worked for me.

Originally Posted by local16

it's to keep fishing pressure down on those small lakes.

IDNR controls lake access by the number of parking spots at the ramps.

I talked to our local Fish Biologist and they submitted some rule change requests.
One deals with hp restricted lakes and the other deals with size limits. Both must be passed by our legislators before taking affect. They had to submit the requests last year to get them on the docket for this year. If they pass they will be in effect starting next year.

Originally Posted by skunked again

Washington county lake experimented with this. Not sure why it falied.
Would lakes like coffeen, Newton, Sangchris benefit from it?

i see big motors being run on newton all the time. 250 hp and not at idle either.

Well if you consider that more people would fish it if it was easier to use their boat, then I would say more people would benefit from a change in motor restrictions. I wondered if it doesn't cost more for insurance and additional safety cost concerns, if not I can't see why more lakes don't allow larger motors even if they can only motor at no wake speeds.