06-15-2016, 04:21 PM
Agreed.
I emailed the biologist and got this response:
"We did sample Mantua in 2015 and the population of bass and bluegill continued to look good. I'm behind on working up the data and studying the age and growth as we've had some personnel shortages and other large projects come up that were unanticipated, but my visual impression from our sampling was that things looked pretty similar to 2014, with a healthy balance of large and small bass and bluegill. Regarding the fishing and odd water over the winter - I think we've been dealing with some interesting side of effects of changes to water quality over the past several years and that is beginning to have some effects on the fish and fishing. This is just speculation based on what I have seen with the water quality and the results of a concurrent creel survey we conducted at the reservoir last year, so the following are my thoughts:
In normal water years, the reservoir usually gets "flushed" as new and clean inflow water enters the reservoir and the old water that is concentrated with nutrients leaves the reservoir through the outlet pipe and spillway. As of 2015, this hadn't happened in a few years, and what we saw was lower water and more phytoplankton (free floating algae) blooms during late summer due to a build up of nutrients in the reservoir. It seems like around late July of last year we had a large phytoplankton bloom (green water) that took hold and fishing pretty much shut down for the summer after that, as the bloom produced low water clarity and I also think oxygen concentrations were probably lower than optimal due to all the plant respiration from the existing rooted plants and the phytoplankton bloom. This plankton bloom lasted long enough that I think it shaded out a lot the rooted plants in the reservoir, which appeared to have died off during the late season and early winter. This is not a problem in the long term as most of the plants are either perennial or had already produced seeds for the season, but I think the main result of this was little to no cover for the young bluegill this winter. Usually there is some plant life that hangs around during the winter and provides some marginal cover for the young bluegill, but I think this may have been largely absent this winter and that means that the perch, bass, and trout likely had access to all the young bluegill they could eat. With the predators well fed and the young bluegill out of the picture, that meant the adult bluegill should have also had all the aquatic insects to themselves and were thus well fed too. With all the fish having access to plenty of food, its clear the fishing suffered quite a bit. I had colleagues that are excellent fisherman that went out several times this past winter, and while they marked lots of fish on their sonar, it was just very tough fishing. While the water was a bit of an off color during that time too, I don't think it had too much effect on visibility for the fish as they always seemed to show up on the sonar to check out what the anglers were presenting, they just didn't seem too interested in biting. That brings us to this season. From what I've heard, the fishing is just starting to pick up again. I was out for a few hours about three weeks ago and hooked a nice bass, but the water was crystal clear and the fish were definitely pretty easily spooked. I talked with a few other anglers that day and they had caught some bass too, so I think the fishing has just been very hit and miss. I would chalk it up to most of the fish being very well fed this winter, which probably brought them into spring with some good fat reserves, and then it seems we've had some good storms or winds most weeks, which have also made fishing tougher and more unpredictable. I think as we get into summer and the weeds grow back, we should see fishing return to more normal conditions. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. Good luck out there."
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I emailed the biologist and got this response:
"We did sample Mantua in 2015 and the population of bass and bluegill continued to look good. I'm behind on working up the data and studying the age and growth as we've had some personnel shortages and other large projects come up that were unanticipated, but my visual impression from our sampling was that things looked pretty similar to 2014, with a healthy balance of large and small bass and bluegill. Regarding the fishing and odd water over the winter - I think we've been dealing with some interesting side of effects of changes to water quality over the past several years and that is beginning to have some effects on the fish and fishing. This is just speculation based on what I have seen with the water quality and the results of a concurrent creel survey we conducted at the reservoir last year, so the following are my thoughts:
In normal water years, the reservoir usually gets "flushed" as new and clean inflow water enters the reservoir and the old water that is concentrated with nutrients leaves the reservoir through the outlet pipe and spillway. As of 2015, this hadn't happened in a few years, and what we saw was lower water and more phytoplankton (free floating algae) blooms during late summer due to a build up of nutrients in the reservoir. It seems like around late July of last year we had a large phytoplankton bloom (green water) that took hold and fishing pretty much shut down for the summer after that, as the bloom produced low water clarity and I also think oxygen concentrations were probably lower than optimal due to all the plant respiration from the existing rooted plants and the phytoplankton bloom. This plankton bloom lasted long enough that I think it shaded out a lot the rooted plants in the reservoir, which appeared to have died off during the late season and early winter. This is not a problem in the long term as most of the plants are either perennial or had already produced seeds for the season, but I think the main result of this was little to no cover for the young bluegill this winter. Usually there is some plant life that hangs around during the winter and provides some marginal cover for the young bluegill, but I think this may have been largely absent this winter and that means that the perch, bass, and trout likely had access to all the young bluegill they could eat. With the predators well fed and the young bluegill out of the picture, that meant the adult bluegill should have also had all the aquatic insects to themselves and were thus well fed too. With all the fish having access to plenty of food, its clear the fishing suffered quite a bit. I had colleagues that are excellent fisherman that went out several times this past winter, and while they marked lots of fish on their sonar, it was just very tough fishing. While the water was a bit of an off color during that time too, I don't think it had too much effect on visibility for the fish as they always seemed to show up on the sonar to check out what the anglers were presenting, they just didn't seem too interested in biting. That brings us to this season. From what I've heard, the fishing is just starting to pick up again. I was out for a few hours about three weeks ago and hooked a nice bass, but the water was crystal clear and the fish were definitely pretty easily spooked. I talked with a few other anglers that day and they had caught some bass too, so I think the fishing has just been very hit and miss. I would chalk it up to most of the fish being very well fed this winter, which probably brought them into spring with some good fat reserves, and then it seems we've had some good storms or winds most weeks, which have also made fishing tougher and more unpredictable. I think as we get into summer and the weeds grow back, we should see fishing return to more normal conditions. Hope that helps. Feel free to ask if you have any other questions. Good luck out there."
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