Stocking Smallmouths, Shiners, Trout, and Perch

Today we stocked tons of golden shiners for several different lakes. Golden Shiners are a great supplemental forage for largemouth bass and all species of predator fish. Shiners grow to about 8 inches long here in Central Illinois and they reproduce great in lakes and ponds with lots of vegetation. Bass absolutely love them and they convert them to flesh at a much higher ratio than fathead minnows. I stock 20 lbs of shiners per acre in larger lakes and up to 100 lbs per acre in smaller lakes.

Here are some pics of shooting the shiners into this 35 acre lake:

Also we stocked a whole bunch of smallmouth bass. Smallies grow great here in central Illinois, they just dont reproduce well when a lake is overcrowded with Largemouths. They reproduce great when largemouths are not overcrowded or not present. The key to getting smallies established in a mature lake is to stock them large enough so they dont get eaten by the existing predators.

Stocking rates for smallmouth vary depending on your goals and your habitat. Typically if your lake is clear and produces lots of 12-14 inch bass, your habitat is actually more geared for growing trophy smallmouth than largemouth. Smallmouth can grow to larger sizes on smaller forage than largemouths can. A diet of crayfish, amphibians, and small fish will grow 3-4 lb smallies whereas that same diet will only grow 12-14 inch largemouths. Largemouth bass need big prey items that they can capture easily in order to reach trophy size.

Next fish we stocked today was the rainbow trout. Last week we stocked thousands of trout, today we just finished up our trout orders with 200 fish into several different ponds. Trout need clear water typically over 40 feet deep or heavily spring fed in order to survive our hot summer months. Surprisingly we have quite a few lakes and ponds in the area that sustain trout year round. I still stock more trout into farm ponds than you can imagine. We put em in as bonus fish for ice fishing and cold weather open water fishing. They are alot of fun:

The last pond of the day is a male only bluegill and female only perch pond. Sounds interesting doesnt it? Male bluegills grow abnormally large in the absence of females, and female perch grow HUGE in the absence of males. We have this one acre pond setup to grow some monster panfish for our client for ice fishing this season. It takes a bit of thinking and management to pull this off, but this one acre pond will be the best icefishing pond on the east side of the Illinois river.

It was a very busy day. Started in Norris, then to a couple places in Canton, Cuba, Mapleton, Peoria, Washburn, and Spring Bay. Lots of driving, but got alot of fish into some new homes!

Heartland Outdoors Magazine

I am super excited! I have been asked to write a monthly column for Heartland Outdoors Magazine and a weekly blog post online to join some of Illinois' elite outdoor bloggers! Heartland is fast becoming Illinois premier outdoor magazine and website! Here is my bio for my Heartland Blog. Yep, they gave me the title of The Lake Doctor! I really enjoy writing and look forward to the new challenge. I dropped out of college a couple times and my english isnt always proper, but let's just hope they have some good editors!

Anyhow I hope if your reading this you will pick up a subscription to Heartland Outdoors and read my monthly article. My first article was called Rainbow Trout in Farm Ponds. I am sure my articles will be available online at some point, but still reading the mag in person is much much better. Just make sure you tell the subscription person your subscribing because of the new lake management content!!! A subscription only costs like $1.50 per issue mailed right to your door.

Here is the latest issue! If you look real close at the bottom you will see my name on the Cover!!

October Big Fish!

Had a great weekend. Pretty much every minute of next week is accounted for so probably wont have time to write any words for a few days, but here are the best pics from the weekend. Caught some monster hybrid striped bass, channel catfish, and smallmouth bass!

Shocking, Stocking, Consulting, and Goose Blinding

I couldn't classify this week as my busiest week ever, but definitely it has to be close. Its Thursday night late and I just finished a lake management plan for a subdivision lake in Bloomington. I am winding down listening to Sportcenter in the background jotting down thoughts for my diary.... This morning started at 5:30 am when I headed out delivering fish and is ending 300 miles and 18 hours later. Technically though when I am writing I am still on the clock.....

Anyhow it seems like we packed a weeks worth of work into every single day this week. Monday started out well before light when we loaded up a fish truck at 5 am and shipped a load of our prized feed trained smallmouth bass down to a client in North Carolina. I still have people from Tennessee that want a load of these special smallmouth, but I wont be able to meet demand this fall. I am completely out. Next year I plan on raising a whole bunch more for sure!

Moving on, we installed this texas hunter deer blind for a client on tuesday and planted a whole bunch of winter wheat for some geese:

Wednesday I did an onsite consultation for heartland hills subdivision lake in Bloomington in the morning and then installed this goose blind with Justin for a client in Fulton County in the afternoon.

Then finished off Wednesday night helping my brother in law get ready to set trusses on his house in Cobblestone estates.

Thursday started well before the sun. Our first stop was to Benningfields lakes where we stocked some rainbow trout, channel catfish, grass carp, and albino catfish. Next stop was to Hidden Lakes Farms where we stocked a whole bunch of rainbow trout in the trout lake, golden shiners in the smallmouth lake, feed trained bass in the trophy lake, and hybrid stripers into the striper lake. Next Justin went to Sherman and Bryant property with a whole tank full of fathead minnows and golden shiners to get their new pond started right while I went to Ted Rigginbach's and Edwin Petersons to stock some big rainbow trout. I put some 4, 5, and even an 8 lb rainbow trout into Edwins small pond for our big ice fishing extravaganza this winter! (if your his friend, hopefully you get invited!!!) Then I met back up with Justin at Doug Oberhelmans trout lake and loaded him up with a tank load of trout for Cullinans trout lake while I stocked Doug's. From their we went to Norris to supplement a few trout and from there Justin went to Gary Glovers lake to stock a whole bunch of hybrid striped bass, albino catfish, channel catfish and rainbow trout. I headed off to White Oak Lake in Germantown Hills to stock hundreds of lbs of golden shiners. I expect great things from that lake in the near future! By about 7 pm I was home and been working on paperwork pretty much ever since.

Some fish stocking pics:

Friday I have some more paperwork to get ready for next weeks fish stockings in the morning, some shipments to get out from online orders and then we will be putting in another Bradley Goose Blind in the afternoon for a client. I am staying at the lake Friday night to get ready for a fishing trip on Saturday. I am taking Fred Funk from Morton and his two boys out walleye fishing saturday morning. Now that is some work I definitely look forward to!

Sunday I will sleep.

Smallmouth Bass Eats a Snake

On Saturday we electrofished a 4 acre smallmouth bass lake over near Victoria, IL. We found this smallmouth bass with a partially digested snake hanging out of it. We either shocked the snake out prematurely or the bass was trying to get rid of it from its gut:

Smallmouth bass lake looks pretty interesting eh?

Greg Grimes from aquatic environmental services down in Georgia came up Thursday night with a truckload of fish for many of my clients. He stayed for a few days to do some deer hunting and helped out quite a bit on a few electrofishing surveys on Saturday between hunts.

I thought this retaining wall looked pretty cool. The beach is still under construction, but will be real nice once completed. It is from a clients lake near Henry, IL.

Greg and Justin were able to get some good practice in before going out to hunt every evening.