Bad form to reply to your own post. But thought this might be helpful. I sent a copy of my new writeup to Chris Penne...of DWR...for his review and critique. Here are his comments. As always, we appreciate Chris' willingness to keep us informed.
Thanks for sharing and the opportunity to read, Pat. This will be a great resource for anglers. You did a great job covering the history of Willard, different species and their habits and techniques to fish for them. I've pasted a few comments below - feel free to take em or leave em.
Page 2 - Transition - Our experience is perch are usually spawning after walleye - we'll occasionally find them laying eggs masses on our gill nets as we are wrapping up walleye spawning activities. I suppose it's possible you have been noting some earlier spawning activities in the marina areas since those tend to warm up a bit faster or you might be seeing some prespawn activity like in walleye. I'm aware they are definitely easier to find this time of year in some aggregations. In the main lake, they're usually spawning hot on the heels of the walleye spawn.
"You wouldn’t think fish would be as sensitive to pressure changes in
the air but they do seem to respond. For this reason I try to time my fishing trips for a time
after two or three calm days…well after any front has moved through." - I agree with this one 100% . There have been a few studies done by fisheries scientists on this one and with the large datasets at hand, there hasn't been any real conclusive evidence that angling success changes with pressure. My experience as an angler is different though where it seems to me my success definitely goes down right after low pressure systems role through, especially at Willard. I'm wondering if perhaps the studies are obscured by something like the 80/20 rule where 20% of the anglers catch 80% of the fish. The anglers that are generally pretty successful can tell and experience a difference, but I'm wondering if the catch rates for the more casual angler don't change much based on weather. They might have not caught a fish even in good weather conditions or perhaps they catch equally well or poor regardless of conditions. These studies are usually just data mining with data that was already collected from creel surveys, so the fishery scientists can only work with the data given instead of designing an ideal study. So since the casual anglers are much more numerous than the consistently successful anglers, I'm thinking this overpowers any effects that might otherwise be detected.
"Willard’s gizzard shad spawn over a several week period…usually beginning sometime in April and sometimes extending into June." - Well said. We've documented up to four different cohorts spawned during a season by they shad. Cohorts in this case would be a group of fish spawned at the same time.
Page 8 "And the predatory walleyes and catfish grew larger and fatter on an abundant diet
of crappies…of all sizes." I wasn't around then, but from the historical fishery reports, I've read, at least for the walleye, they likely got bigger due to having more transitional forage like mid-size perch and more abundant crappie. However, the reports indicated there were also enough lean years with skinny walleye. It was this feast and famine that supposedly lead to the introduction of shad as a more stable source of forage. It should be noted that fisheries scientists have documented shad having an impact on juvenile crappie success, so - usually larval shad competing with larval crappie for food. So it was known at the time that crappie populations would likely take somewhat of a hit from the introduction of shad. Crappie obviously still have some good year classes from time to time, but it's not as common.
Take care,
Chris
Thanks for sharing and the opportunity to read, Pat. This will be a great resource for anglers. You did a great job covering the history of Willard, different species and their habits and techniques to fish for them. I've pasted a few comments below - feel free to take em or leave em.
Page 2 - Transition - Our experience is perch are usually spawning after walleye - we'll occasionally find them laying eggs masses on our gill nets as we are wrapping up walleye spawning activities. I suppose it's possible you have been noting some earlier spawning activities in the marina areas since those tend to warm up a bit faster or you might be seeing some prespawn activity like in walleye. I'm aware they are definitely easier to find this time of year in some aggregations. In the main lake, they're usually spawning hot on the heels of the walleye spawn.
"You wouldn’t think fish would be as sensitive to pressure changes in
the air but they do seem to respond. For this reason I try to time my fishing trips for a time
after two or three calm days…well after any front has moved through." - I agree with this one 100% . There have been a few studies done by fisheries scientists on this one and with the large datasets at hand, there hasn't been any real conclusive evidence that angling success changes with pressure. My experience as an angler is different though where it seems to me my success definitely goes down right after low pressure systems role through, especially at Willard. I'm wondering if perhaps the studies are obscured by something like the 80/20 rule where 20% of the anglers catch 80% of the fish. The anglers that are generally pretty successful can tell and experience a difference, but I'm wondering if the catch rates for the more casual angler don't change much based on weather. They might have not caught a fish even in good weather conditions or perhaps they catch equally well or poor regardless of conditions. These studies are usually just data mining with data that was already collected from creel surveys, so the fishery scientists can only work with the data given instead of designing an ideal study. So since the casual anglers are much more numerous than the consistently successful anglers, I'm thinking this overpowers any effects that might otherwise be detected.
"Willard’s gizzard shad spawn over a several week period…usually beginning sometime in April and sometimes extending into June." - Well said. We've documented up to four different cohorts spawned during a season by they shad. Cohorts in this case would be a group of fish spawned at the same time.
Page 8 "And the predatory walleyes and catfish grew larger and fatter on an abundant diet
of crappies…of all sizes." I wasn't around then, but from the historical fishery reports, I've read, at least for the walleye, they likely got bigger due to having more transitional forage like mid-size perch and more abundant crappie. However, the reports indicated there were also enough lean years with skinny walleye. It was this feast and famine that supposedly lead to the introduction of shad as a more stable source of forage. It should be noted that fisheries scientists have documented shad having an impact on juvenile crappie success, so - usually larval shad competing with larval crappie for food. So it was known at the time that crappie populations would likely take somewhat of a hit from the introduction of shad. Crappie obviously still have some good year classes from time to time, but it's not as common.
Take care,
Chris