Thread: Patoka and bluegill

Stripers weren't even introduced into Patoka until mid 2000's and long before the lake had problems with the gill population. If your strickly striper fishing on Patoka,,good luck as the population in my book leaves a lot to be desired. Better fishing for the hybrids on Monroe. Or even the Racoon.

I should have clarified, I was talking about lakes in general. So the shad population gets too big for a lake, what does that do? Don't panfish eat shad? Aren't minnows baby shad?

I made that comment about stripers cause, me and my buddies figured the stripers were eatin' all the gills and crappies at The Coon and that is why we don't catch very many big ones.

In general,,I don't care for the stripers, hybrids mixed in our lakes. Sure they say,,they are there to combat the shad,,but they eat everything and get very big quick. Sure they are fun to catch, can only keep 2 large ones,,yep,,they eat good too. But its the overabundance of shad that is our problem,,look at Monroe,,100 dinks,,and one keeper or a ratio that really is out of proportioned to large crappies and at Patoka, the demise of a great pan fishery that was once tops for everybody. You can still catch big gills,,but have to catch a ton of small ones now. I don't know what the answers are,,kinda like when they put the northerns in Patoka,,I blamed them on the demise of the smallmouth as I could catch a lot of them in the early years of the lake. When it comes to crappies and gills,,are we overfishing them or did we over fish them to start the downsizing? Not sure of that either,,but fishing pressure can contribute.
Anbody read the DNR study on Bass Fishing put out after studying the Bass Tournaments during 2006-2010??? Look it up on DNR's website as it floored me being a former Bass Tourney fisherman that quit about 1992 or 3. 2010 avg fisherman fished 10 plus hours during a Bass tourney just to catch 1 legal bass. 130 tournaments used in 2010 to compile that information on the top 10 lakes they fished. Largest Bass came out of Monroe at 7.3lbs followed by Patoka at 7.2. Ouch!!! We used to weigh in an occasional 8 off both those lakes in the 70-80s and that comes from 90,0000.00 plus hours of tourney fishing for bass. We also had 2 years of 1000lb total weight weigh ins on Patoka in the early years as well. That will never happen again.

the shad get to big to quick for most panfish to eat and out compete them at their early stages of life for food

Originally Posted by Chill

I don't understand why,what or how the shad increase hurts the crappie population. In my head I think the stripers are eating all the panfish.

From my understanding, year of the young shad, crappie, bluegill, white/yellow bass, all rely more on microscopic life and vegetation in their first year. When the majority of our waterways lack severely in vegetation, it's hard to keep all those mouths fed. This, in turn, will cause the fish to grow at a slower pace. Often times, the fish are still relying heavily on the same shortage of food in their second year of life. Take a lake like Monroe or Patoka. Some areas seem to produce better fish than others. Those areas that produce generally have a different ecosystem. I do believe that your stripers are eating their fair share, too, but that should only make the fish healthier, since the numbers would be down. As far as the Coon goes..........white bass changed that fishery 30 years ago. It's a tough balance between having plenty of prey, but at the same time having enough predators.