Thread: Ask the Biologist

I seem to be always wondering, but I wonder what keeps their numbers in check on the east coast estuaries.

Originally Posted by kscatman

Craig,
When you put piles in do you record GPS coordinates? (specifically chase county. ) I know out at Glen Elder the piles and their coordinates are availabe for public to see.
Thanks,
Travis

Travis,

Yes, I usually record the waypoints at the reservoirs but for my smaller state fishing lakes I usually don't mess with marking them because of the smaller size of the lake. I've had a couple of projects at El Dorado Reservoir where I didn't see a need to record waypoints as we worked to cover the 5 to 7 foot contour along the total shoreline of a couple of coves. I need to put some more piles in at Chase as I haven't freshened those up since 2007 and there's probably not much left of those cedars.

Originally Posted by Riverc

Hi Craig....Hey I'm from Wichita and go to El Dorado often to camp bought a boat not long ago and ready to start fishing for mostly crappie,bass & catfish.

How is the crappie fishing on the lake??? Is the standing timber around the Box Turtle Point campground (Bluestem) worth trying???

Also looking at the timber in the Boulder Bluff area for crappie also.

I also went catfishing in the cove behind the marina and had some luck with catfish 32 caught by 3 of us but were only able to keep 5 because of size (small).Would this be a good place to try for crappie??

I would also like to do some Bass fishing on the lake but never hear any reports or from anyone fishing for bass on El Dorado.

Thanks for reading and any help you can give.Also thanks for all the work you do on the lakes.

Signed up for a camphost job for 2011 at El Dorado Lake if I get it will be doing a lot of fishing in my free time.Been camping at the park since 2001 but have not done much fishing on it.

Riverc,

Sorry for the delay in replying. I was on the water each day of last week checking on shad populations and didn't have much keyboard time.

The crappie population at El Dorado lake could be described as low density with high quality. When compared to the NE Kansas reservoirs our crappie densities are rather low but the fish anglers do catch are quite nice. Not many anglers pursue summertime crappie at El Dorado or if they do they are awfully tight lipped! Last week while electrofishing I saw numerous nice sized crappie in water less than 3 feet deep and usually along rip rapped area or on isolated trees/brush (kinda matches up with Chatt's description of the 'summer pattern', doesn't it?). These fish didn't seem to have a problem being quite shallow with surface temps pushing 90 degrees. When you fish El Dorado for crappie, don't expect high numbers but you should find the fish of quality size.

The marina cove can be good for crappie fishing during certain times of the year. Shad usually congregate in this cove as the water begins to cool and sometimes the sportfish will follow. Good catches of crappie come from the marina cove during winter and early spring.

El Dorado has three species of black bass (largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted). Fishing for these can be good at times but usually the lack of numbers in the lake makes fishing for them rather tough. Reports for black bass at the lake are hard to come by as the guys fishing for them and doing well are VERY tight tipped as many also fish the tournament circuits that include El Dorado. There are some nice largemouth and smallmouth in the lake but an angler shouldn't expect to go out and catch a limit every time out. The length limit for black bass at El Dorado increased to an 18-inch minimum length limit on Jan. 1, 2010. Smallies like to hang out on the dam and other rip rapped areas. Many short smallies can be caught on jigs at the dam. The larger smallies hang in the deeper water on isolated structure. El Dorado has a lot of good smallie habitat on the west side points, south shoreline of the Shady/Bemis creek arm, and along the dam.

There seems to be abundance of 8 to 11 inch channel catfish this year. Around the first part of June, it was difficult to fish for walleye in 9 to 12 feet of water because the smaller channel catfish would pound a jig and crawler as soon as it neared the bottom!! They seemed to be EVERYWHERE!

Good luck with your fishing and hopefully this helps you out a little bit.

Please take a moment to look at the Asian Carp Video on the KDWP website.

We DO NOT want any of these in our lakes or reservoirs.

Craig \ All,

This is half report half question.

Went to Old Sedan Lake with my wife and daughter last week to fish for crappie. Got there about 5pm, by 7pm we hit the century mark, we slowed down a little and went searching for bigger fish, but ended up with 125 crappie for the evening. The only problem is we only had a couple that measured 10+in, the rest were ~9in and some even smaller. So I only kept a couple fish to clean, didn’t want to stay up till 2am cleaning fish then try to make it to work the next day. Went bass fishing for the last hour of the day, and caught two ~15in bass while my wife continued to pull up crappie behind the boat in 3-4ft of water. Great day catching and also a good competition between my wife and I.

My question is: How can the average size of fish be increased in the lake? This isn’t the first time I’ve been there and caught a ton of small fish to one decent sized fish. Should I of kept all the fish I caught or my legal limit, cleaned what I wanted and disposed of the rest, in order to “thin the herd”, or would taking a hundred fish out of the lake even put a dent in the crappie population. The two bass I caught were not rail thin but were on the skinny side, I would expect them to be chomping down on the young crappie and look like footballs. I know this is the case in Butler SFL where they have a ton of 4in crappie but that what makes it a great bass lake. Talked to the biologist over Sedan in the past and the hope is to stock saugeye in the lakes with a crappie over abundance, supposedly there is some saugeye in Sedan, and every year he puts in a order of saugeye but getting them is hard. I understand crappie population is hard to regulate in small bodies of water, they over populate easily and have relatively short life spans. Is there anything the average fishermen can do to help the lake to produce larger crappie?

Thanks,
Tim.

Originally Posted by fishingtim

Craig \ All,

This is half report half question.

Went to Old Sedan Lake with my wife and daughter last week to fish for crappie. Got there about 5pm, by 7pm we hit the century mark, we slowed down a little and went searching for bigger fish, but ended up with 125 crappie for the evening. The only problem is we only had a couple that measured 10+in, the rest were ~9in and some even smaller. So I only kept a couple fish to clean, didn’t want to stay up till 2am cleaning fish then try to make it to work the next day. Went bass fishing for the last hour of the day, and caught two ~15in bass while my wife continued to pull up crappie behind the boat in 3-4ft of water. Great day catching and also a good competition between my wife and I.

My question is: How can the average size of fish be increased in the lake? This isn’t the first time I’ve been there and caught a ton of small fish to one decent sized fish. Should I of kept all the fish I caught or my legal limit, cleaned what I wanted and disposed of the rest, in order to “thin the herd”, or would taking a hundred fish out of the lake even put a dent in the crappie population. The two bass I caught were not rail thin but were on the skinny side, I would expect them to be chomping down on the young crappie and look like footballs. I know this is the case in Butler SFL where they have a ton of 4in crappie but that what makes it a great bass lake. Talked to the biologist over Sedan in the past and the hope is to stock saugeye in the lakes with a crappie over abundance, supposedly there is some saugeye in Sedan, and every year he puts in a order of saugeye but getting them is hard. I understand crappie population is hard to regulate in small bodies of water, they over populate easily and have relatively short life spans. Is there anything the average fishermen can do to help the lake to produce larger crappie?

Thanks,
Tim.

Tim,

I forwarded your question to Carson Cox, KDWP Fish Bio for the Sedan City Lakes. His reply is below.

At Sedan City Lakes it would be beneficial to the crappie population if you would harvest your legal limit of any size crappie every chance you get. The remaining crappie will have less competition for food and grow faster. Also, Sedan New City Lake has too many small largemouth bass. It would benefit the bass population to harvest five bass under 13 inches every chance you get to reduce the population density. With fewer mouths to feed, remaining fish will grow faster. Thanks for your questions and desire to improve fishing in Kansas. You can make a difference.

Would one be subject to 'wanton waste' regulations if they tossed on shore all the short fish they legally caught at those overpopulated waters?

Originally Posted by LBM

Would one be subject to 'wanton waste' regulations if they tossed on shore all the short fish they legally caught at those overpopulated waters?

Yes they would, Lee.