Electrofishing and Update at Otter Creek Preserve

Spent Friday at Otter Creek Preserve with Justin and Ryan. Otter Creek is a Herman Brothers Featured Property, is a world class fishing and hunting property, and is currently available. We electrofished all of the lakes and strategically moved some fish around.

I just would like to write a bit about one of the 10 acre lakes. It is a new lake and we just stocked it with fish last year- 2008. It is our TROPHY LAKE! I basically hand selected each one of the fish that we stocked and also am going through the process of weeding out any fish that doesnt keep up with the rest! The fish I am weeding out of this lake would be trophy fish in any other lake, but this one!

Here is a little history about the bass of this lake. They were born in May 2007, and raised in a hatchery growout pond on a diet of high protein nuggets and fathead minnows. We purchased them in May of 2008 and stocked them into the 10 acre lake completely full of threadfin shad, gizzard shad, golden shiners, and fathead minnows. We also supplementally fed them a heavy diet of high protein fish food almost the size of golf balls!

This picture was taken on May 8, 2009 on this fish's second birthday, she is exactly 2 years old! A normal 2 year old bass would be less than one pound and 8-11 inches long under ideal conditions. This bass comes from the best line of genetics in the Nation and is trained only to eat all day long from the moment it was born!

We tagged and relocated 186 of the "subpar" largemouth today, and let me tell you that 175 of them still had relative weights over 100%!! The average bass in the lake is already over 1.75 lbs each, that is already better than most lakes in the state! By the end of this summer the average bass will be over 3 lbs each. My ultimate goal for the lake is a 5 lb average for the bass by the end of 2010.

We also stocked a handful of 10 inch walleye last spring for a bonus fishery for this lake. Today we electrofished up 10 walleye 15-18 inches and FAT! I have raised 1000's of walleye here in central Illinois, but never have been able to grow them this fast!