Finally found the 'no fail' way to catch fish

[Roberta]

Doug and I are taking part in a stream study program this summer. We (and several others) work different parts of the stream in question with kick nets to collect and catalogue macroinvertebrates. But THEN, we got to assist the biologist with electro-shocking. As slow as fishing has been when we've been out this year, I was wishing I could borrow that gizmo for a few days. LOL. - Roberta

[whizkids]

I am definitly not up todate on macroinvertebrates, but I have started a dialog with my local biologist regarding crappie management on local resevoirs. I have a copy of each year of the study being done on one lake from 1998 till 2004. They make for interresting reading.

[Roberta]

The streams we're working on so far are all small, but we'll eventually work up to a nearly pristine stream that regularly produces over thirty species of fish in the electro shock studies, including crappie and smallies. I'm really looking forward to that. The stream we did Saturday only produced eight - white suckers, stonerollers, creek chubs, redbelly daces, rainbow darters and green sunfish among others. Interesting thing about darters is that that they lack airbladders, so they sink into the rocks after getting zapped.
There's development going on upstream and that has really affected water quality. We found a disturbing number of blood midges in the macro study, although we still found species that are intolerant of pollution. - Roberta

[TAE73]

A old crank phone will do wonders, just like the machine that conservations uses for shocking. I dont know for sure, I have only heard that this works.

[whizkids]

A old crank phone will do wonders, just like the machine that conservations uses for shocking. I dont know for sure, I have only heard that this works.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Crank phone works on fish with no scales. Or maybe thats all there were where my dad used to crank them up. Mostly all we got were catfish.

[CrappieLips]

That all we ever rang up back yearssss ago. wayne cats

But now we have used those hillbilly fishin sticks. Just when we busting beaver damns

[whizkids]

Roberta:
The lake I am refering too has just been designated as part of a National Heritage Site. Over the past fifteen years the water quality has been improved
dramatically and while there is a lot of lake development it has been done in an environmentally responsible way. The problem is that as the water quality has improved the crappie fishing has deterioated. There are two rivers that feed the lake and now the crappie are concentrated in the upper end of one arm. The nutrient richest part of the lake.
The lake has an excellent smallmouth population and a good walleye population.
It seems as if there is not enough forage to maintain a population of crappie in all sections of the lake. I hope to generate enough interest so that we can work with the fisheries management people to verify this as the problem or identify another problem. Currently crappie fishermen just go somewhere else and the fishery seems to be managed for walleye fishermen. It will be an interesting project.

[Pomoxis 2]

Crappie simply do not do well in clear water. Is that lake becoming clear due to the "improvements"? At the inlet end of the lake they might do OK where sediments are still suspended from the moving water or where plankton have the most nutrients. By the time the water has reached the outlet the sediments have settled out, the nutrients have been consumed and the water is clearer. Have any Secchi Disc measurements been done over time in the lake? Here is something to consider: Inert sediments and phosphate richness are two different things, though they may be related. What is the relationship, and what is the relationship of each one to Crappie productivity? Maybe you could relate that info to the localized Crappie population density and come up with something even the biologists are impressed with.
Food for thought.

[papasage]

a crank phone onley gits cat fish . sometimes you will see a scale fish come up and take off but that is usealey frome the cats acting uo . it doesen efect eal . just cats . guess the whiskers pick up the shock waves .they dont put out enough amps i guess . it wii\ll knock the h*** out of you. it has to be runing water and fairley clear.

[Roberta]

Surely that's not a legal means of taking fish anywhere is it?

The two units the biologist we're working with run off a generator. The one we use wading streams (wearing rubber waders, of course) has a long handled net with a wire in the end and a cut-off switch on the handle that completes a circuit to a wire floating in the water a few yards away. The boat model has probes the create an electrical field off the bow of a boat.

We picked up lots of craws, but they were just disturbed by all the activity. Their exoskeletons protect them from the electrical charge.

About the lake improvement issue. It would be interesting to know specifically what they are trying to improve - water quality or water clarity. Two different animals. - Roberta