LAKE L Fishing Newslett

LAKE L Fishing Newslett

January March May July September November Inches of Rainfall Three Year Rainfall Comparison 12 10 8 6 4 2 2015 Monthly Rainfall 2014 Monthly Rainfall 2013 Monthly Rainfall 0

January March May July September Number of Anglers per month November 600 Three Year Monthly Angler Attendance Comparison 500 400 300 200 100 2015 Angler Attendance 2014 Angler Attendance 2013 Angler Attendance 0

January February March April May June July August September October November December Number of Bass Caught Three Year Bass Harvest Comparison 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2015 Number of Bass Harvested 2014 Number of Bass Harvested 2013 Number of Bass Harvested

January March May July September November Number of Bream caught Three Year Bream Harvest Comparison 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 2015 Number of Bream Harvested 2014 Number of Bream Harvested 2013 Number of Bream Harvested 0

We got 3.2 inches of rainfall for June 2015. The water temperature is 88 F at the surface. Secchi is at 18 inches. We had a bit of a aquatic scare last month so I got Brandon to put in 1.5 gallons of fertilizer on June 21, 2015 and this caused a nice green bloom. The lake has been holding at 16 18 inches for the past two weeks.

Bass fishing has continued to be good for the month of June despite hot temperatures and green water. Tommy Hedrick and Mark Grant have tied as being the lake s monthly champion. Bass fishing has been slow but productive. Anglers are not catching vast numbers of bass but they are continuing to catch slot fish on a regular basis. The last two trips I have made to the lake I only caught one fish, but one was a 3 pounder and the other was a 5 pounder. Sadly these were the only bites that I had.

Tommy Hedrick caught this nice 9.5 pound bass in June on a pumpkin seed/ chartreuse worm. Photo by Brandon Rivers. Tommy caught this 7.5 pound bass on hot, hot June day. Tommy had kept the bass in the water and came straight to the beach to show me. It was whiteeyed when he got it to me. I had to employ my bass CPR technique in order to bring it back to life. I had spent several minutes swirling the fish in the water, doing chest compressions and tickling the back of its throat trying to resuscitate the fish. I was just about to pronounce the fish DOA when suddenly its eyes cleared up! I knew it was going to make it! It slowly swam away

and eventually recovered! My bass CPR technique works!!! Mark Grant caught this nice 7.5 pound, 23.25 inch bass on an A-rig one Wednesday morning. A very nice fish but one that had slimmed down from its winter weight.

Mark caught this nice 5 and 4 pound bass last week.

Madison Beadore, girlfriend of Brandon Rivers, caught this nice 5 pound bass one day while she was fishing on Lake LU. I ll guarantee you that she was using a June bug worm. Photo by Brandon Rivers.

Eli and I had walked down to the lake one day to try our luck. We had fished for at least an hour with not one little bite. He was wanting to head home but I told him that we couldn t go home skunked. I cast out and caught this nice 3.5 slot bass and let Eli reel it in. He is becoming quite a bass enthusiast. Every time we go into a sporting goods store we have to go straight to the plastic worms section. Photo by Eli Limerick.

Here is a vintage Lake LU bass photo. Above is Dennis Humphreys, a former UWA employee posing in front of the old lake office/trailer with a 12 pound bass that another angler had caught. Dennis worked at UWA back in the early 1980 s when it was known as Livingston University. I m sure that this picture was taken by either James or Lola Tew who were the lake managers then. NEW BASS HARVEST REGULATION EFFECTIVE JANUARY 1, 2015

The new largemouth bass regulation shall read: Anglers may harvest any bass they catch at Lake LU, as long as the bass is less than 14 inches in total length. In addition, anglers may also harvest 1 fish greater than 22 inches in total length, a day at Lake LU. Please continue to encourage anglers to harvest small bass. ~ Jay Haffner Chris McKee and Jay Haffner came to the lake in late June to perform their June seine surveys. They found small bream in the 1 and 2 inch range in great abundance. They said that the numbers of 3 and 4 inch bream were also increasing. They said that it appeared that the bass feeding on shiners was reducing the pressure on the bluegill population and that the bream population was rebounding nicely. They continued to express gratitude for the green water.

Jay Haffer continues to pull the 50 foot seine. Jay is out in the lake and Chris is on shore. This seine measured the numbers of 3 and 4 inch bream. This is a 10 foot fry seine. It measures the amount of fry, 1 s and 2 inch bream. It appears that the shiner population is helping the lake by providing another food source for the hungry juvenile bass.

Chris McKee, District 3 Fisheries Biologist posing with my son Eli and one of the 14 inch bass that was caught in the 50 foot seine. In the background, Brandon Rivers and Mark Grant swap fishery information with District 3 Fisheries Supervisor Mr. Jay Haffner. They were asking Jay about predator/prey relationships and Jay was asking them about lures to catch trophy bass on at Lake LU. It was an even swap! These two guys know more about trophy big bass at Lake LU than I do!

Sorry folks but the bluegill harvest took a severe nosedive on the charts and I don t have anything really good to say. The good news is that Jay, Chris and the seine survey says that there is a rebounding bream population that will be gangbusters in a couple of years. The bream harvest chart shows a constant trend towards overall bluegill population decline. Much of this is explained by the reduction in overall bank bluegill anglers in attendance at Lake LU due to the hot summer weather. We plan on putting more timber in the lake this fall and that will help the bream numbers out we hope.

Nature Trail entrance at the Big Troll Bridge.

I welded a steel top on Clyde this month. It appears that 1.5 gallons of liquid pond fertilizer can indeed trigger a bloom. In the future algae may save mankind as a fuel source.

Little House in the prairie. I have been working off and on for the past few weeks trying to reclaim a 500 foot section of the Lake Trail that has become infested with Chinese privet

hedge. It has been hard work with a pole saw. Luckily I can use the Kubota tractor with a grader blade as a rubber tired bulldozer to help with cleanup. I also used the grader blade to install some dirt ramps onto the Oak Tree footbridge. I know that the people that ride mountain bikes on the trails will enjoy this new addition! I painted the two benches on the east side of the lake a nice shade of phytoplankton green.

Sunset from the baseball field. I installed a red box containing trail use questionnaires at the kiosk at the entrance to the Nature Trail Complex. Please take a few minutes to fill out a survey form. The data that users give us will help us to enhance your hiking trail experience.

If anyone wants any advice on fishing Lake LU, please call me at 1-205-652-9266 or e-mail me at lrr@uwa.edu. Feel free to visit Lake LU s website at www.lakelu.uwa.edu. Thank you, Robby Limerick Lake Manager Lake LU lrr@uwa.edu 1-205-652-9266 All other photos by R.Limerick unless otherwise noted.