Lake Slowly Coming Back After Severe Winter Kill

[WIGuide]

My family owns a cabin on Miller Dam, a once red hot bass fishery in north central WI. The lake itself is very shallow, with average depth in the 4' range and naturally grassy. Unfortunately over the past 10-15 years the lake has seen it's share of hardships. In roughly 2000, a bone headed game warden put wild rice in each of the feeder creeks for the lake. The result has been a takeover of the rice. By mid summer, large sections of the lake look more like a field than a lake. With the lake being so shallow it has spread like wildfire inhabiting much of the productive flooded timber the lake was once known for. There was also another invasive grass that made it's way into the lake that choked out much of the native species of grass. Once lush large grass beds with well defined edges have turned into small clumps of grass spread all over. Due to it's shallow nature and the harsh Wisconsin winters, there have been a few years there have been small winter kills. Thanks to the lake association installing aerators the kill had been kept to a minimum, and the bass population hadn't taken a substantial hit. That is until 2012-2013 winter when a very late spring managed to wipe out a majority of the bass population. The club I fish with had a tournament scheduled out there that summer, and there was also another local club that had a tournament out there that day. (typical despite the lake not being huge) Between the 30 some tournament boats out there that day there were less than 15 bass weighed in that day. On a normal year, the vast majority would have brought in limits. 

 

It's sad to see such a great fishery go downhill. My dad and I had fished it a few times each year since, but nowhere near as much like we used to. Even the northern population had seemed to have stumbled a bit, but at least there is still hope for this fishery. Each year our trips have yield a few bass, with the size slowly increasing as well as the number. Not tons, but enough to have hope it will continue to get better. Also the size of the northerns has gradually increased. Not so much in the average size, but you're starting to see some larger ones. In the short amount of time I've fished there this year, I've caught 2 in the 30" range and lost 2 that were in that same class. My dad and I also almost had a limit of largemouth this past Sunday, and also caught two decent ones on Saturday. As for the weekend counts, combined we caught over 40 northerns and 7 bass. Fingers crossed that this fishery will continue to improve, and one day return to it's prominence of one of northern Wisconsin's top bass fisheries. 

 

 

A few quick highlights from this weekend.

 

 

[boostr]

Great story, and nice fish. Hopefully it will all be great again.